


What Can You Do, Milly Sue?

by Greyline



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV), The Vampire Diaries - L. J. Smith
Genre: Alternate Reality, Dimension Travel, Experimental Style, F/M, Mary Sueish, OC centric, Rating May Change, Science Fiction, Sort of Parody, Weird Plot Shit, odd formatting, season one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-10-02 06:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 91,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10211636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greyline/pseuds/Greyline
Summary: SUMMARY: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.UNIVERSE: #19BNOTE: More dreamy scenes in this fic have unusual formatting...which will be destroyed by AO3's width-adaptive site.  I didn't notice this site was responsive until it was too late, and I'd already posted this as I originally wrote it to be read.  I can only really say sorry, and beg you to just widen your browser window a bit.  Unless you're on a phone...in which case, I offer you a thousand apologies.





	1. Wherein the Dream

**Author's Note:**

> So, I posted this on FFnet after someone loosely enquired junk I might have on my hard drive, cluttering the thing up; I went off, had a looksie, and what I found was this horror. I did actually question whether I should bother with it, then shrugged and figured what the hell, might as well! It's pretty slow, I have no idea where it's going, and for the most part it's quite silly...but it was always meant to be. Rating's mainly for continuous potty-mouth-syndrome, though later on it'll probably earn it's M based on other more lascivious things. Don't know yet, I've not got that far. I will mention that I struggled with the genre categorisation for this one; drama and romance was sort of a given, and despite being a parody-type fic I don't think it's exactly humorous, but there is a strong element of sci-fi/bendy-mind insanity going on here. You have been warned (remember this when you're confused out your mind, wishing you'd never started it in the first place...though it won't get that weird until later, I don't think). Despite the thick-of-it beginning, this isn't fast paced at all, so...uh, I don't know, sorry about that? And the pairing's pretty loose, all things considered.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I in no way own any recognisable situations, people, places, and nor do I ever intend to...yada yada yada... I make no money from this and...yada yada yaha... Um... All weird-shit is my own and comes to you with apologies galore. Any views expressed by, behaviour exhibited by, and possible atrocities that may be committed by the characters are entirely their own; they do not represent the views and opinions of the author in any way, shape or form, nor do the characters' actions necessarily represent what the author considers within the realms of acceptable behaviour. You know, just to cover my ass, and so we're being clear here. Oh, and English is not the author's first language - if you heard my first language, your tongue would tie itself in knots and your ears may or may not start to bleed...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER: Adventure dreams tend to be fun, sex dreams are always a pleasant surprise... Self-snuff dreams? They're decidedly horrid, and apparently impossible to wake up from.

  
 

 

  

 

 **WHAT CAN YOU DO, MILLY SUE?** **[a parody that takes itself way too seriously]**                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _may_  
wherein the dream

 

 

 **When Mildred Hiscock finds herself,** having undertaken no intermediary travel, in a strange place of diluted color, shafting sunlight and filing cabinets, she doesn't panic, It's only a dream, She's certainly had more peculiar dreams over the years (in one particularly memorable one she was force-impregnated with spider eggs, which had been a real hoot), though this one is noteworthy simply on the basis of being completely _un_ noteworthy. Her mind usually favors the fantastic and the mildly disturbing – this place is tame by comparison.

She's unnaturally small against the backdrop of a teeny-tiny study filed with oversized office furniture. There's a makeshift bouquet of several particularly star-like dandelions clutched between her small fingers, Sound is both muffled and resonates – like when you put your head under the water in the tub – and the image of a cherry pink bouncy-ball tumbling down a staircase seems to flicker; it's sort of like the shifting static you get when an old VHS tape is pause-played over and over again, The dulled-out color of everything makes her feel like she's in some sort of movie flashback scene; the ball's erratic, rolling-and-jolting movements look like ghosts disappearing and reappearing on an episode of Supernatural.

Mildred can only assume everything looks so massive because she's a child in this dream (well, that or she's in a giant's castle, a la Jack and the Beanstalk), but can't place whether this is some sort of distorted memory from her youth or not. Considering her parents are a borderline sociopathic, struck-out writer of a mother and a beekeeping, trekki of a father, neither of whom have ever required an office like this one, the possibility of this being a memory seems slim.

It doesn't matter anyway.

Before Mildred has really had a chance to investigate her surroundings, the dream shifts dramatically. In that way dreams have, the change doesn't feel disjointed or unnatural; her mind makes up for the unreality of it by going with the flow, by pretending nothing unusual has occurred.

Yes, she _feels_ the scene behind her change – there's no sense of awkwardness though. She feels it by virtue of a cool breeze where there had been none before; she turns to find trees and grass and darkness have sprouted where had previously been stairs. When she turns again – to what had been office scant seconds ago – she finds a road running off into the night.

The cellphone does the opposite of disintegrate – rather, it disintegrates in reverse: From nothingness crumbles of plastic and silver and minuscule components she doesn't know the purpose of crawl up her hand to where it's pressed to her ear, flakes of paint and shards of glass come together into one logical whole. In a matter of moments, she's holding the phone as if it's always been there. She's garbling into it – whatever she's saying doesn't approach anything that can be considered proper syntax, or even proper English – and receiving a pitchy, white-noise equivalent of a female voice from the other end of the line.

Her 'conversation' continues without her – her mouth chatters away while her mind seeks out the elements of her dream. There's some kind of shivoo going on nearby: The smell of a big fire, the sound of teenagers laughing, indiscrete pop-music played loud enough to destroy the ears of anyone stupid enough to stand within a ten-foot radius of the speakers. The night is clear enough to see stars – her head cranes back, immediately seeking out the familiar seven-pattern of the Big Dipper and the larger body of Draco swooping around it. Everything smells like rain and wet leaves, but there's no wind meaning – even though she's only wearing a very thin cardigan – she's not cold in the slightest.

There's something heavy nearby.

No – that doesn't really make any sense. There's an odd sense of waiting on the air, like gravity isn't quite down – her feet are leading her on an idle stroll down the deserted road as if drawn by some great weight. The road's flat but if she were to turn and go back she suspects it would be like climbing a mountain… Yes, that's it – the direction she's traveling feels an awful lot like going downhill.

All she knows for sure is that there's a niggling foreshadowing jiggling around in the back of her mind, some anticipation shuffling below everything else. Her dreams are often this way. Deep down she always knows what's going to happen before it does.

     Then it happens.

"Catherine," a male voice breathes like grace. Like awe and amazement, like it's every hope he's ever had.

Now she's cold.

She looks over at the man who's materialized out the night: He appears to be a bit drunk – and Mildred finds herself wondering if it's one of _those_ dreams… One of the ones where she's chased by an unknown assailant, or one of the ones where she gets it on with a random, good-looking – because he _is_ , exceptionally so – stranger, but always wakes up before the good part. (The former of those two tropes usually turns out to be quite fun. She can always let herself fall backward on the air, fly away from whoever – or _what_ ever – is following her. The latter of them usually results in her waking up horny, depressed about the state of her – non-existent – love life, wondering why it hadn't seemed odd she had multiple vaginae in the dream (and how the sensory input hadn't short-circuited her brain.))

"Catherine?" the man repeats into her silence, sounding more grounded and less certain than before.

"Um, no – I'm Mildred," she informs him.

He gives her a funny, half-squinting look, as if checking to make sure she isn't mistaken about her own identity. Which she isn't – even in her dreams she knows her own name… It would be kind of weird if she didn't.

"Oh, you… you just look-" He breaks off, shaking his head as if to get some thought out of it. "I'm sorry, you just really remind me of somebody," he tells her, his voice coming out a little less strangled now and all the more alluring for it. "I'm Damon."

As she takes his offered hand, Mildred realized with a jolt what this dream is.

She and her friend Lucy had a sleepover a few days ago, celebrating Lucy's ditching in the latest in a long string of useless boyfriends, and they'd sort of binge-watched the first three seasons of the Vampire Diaries. Okay...so it had been more of a sleepover _weekend_ , but the concept was the same: TV shows of questionable (at least to _her_ ) watchability, several pints of Ben & Jerry's, a fuck-ton of nachos, a lot of moaning about the general state of the available male population, and…

Damon's just staring at her.

Right – yeah. She's supposed to go along with the dream, not get lost in musings on real-world friend/bad boyfriend catastrophes. Oh well, she's within her rights to space out, though – not like she can actually _embarrass_ herself in a dream (and, to be fair, she's a bit beyond that even in the waking world – her profession calls for a certain level of stoicism). In Cloudland time and space and everyone else are...well, they're nothing more than a figment of her imagination. It's pretty much impossible to be rude to bits of your _own_ subconscious.

His starring is making her marginally uncomfortable nonetheless. Whatever part of her subconscious he came from is apparently slightly disturbing and intense – if with an eye for the pinch-me gorgeous gent. Shame she's never run into him back here before. She supposes the sleepover must have dislodged him.

Oh well, it's going down _now_ , so better late than never. Problem is, she's never read the script for this and can't quite recall what to say… How's it supposed to go again?

"I- Well, not to be rude or anything, Damon," she tries, finding that the words _taste_ right, "but it's kind of creepy you're out here in the middle of nowhere… With no car… If you broke down, I'm pretty sure the nearest Gas-n-Sip's ten miles that-a-way," she snarks, gesturing indicatively down the dark road with her dandelion-free hand.

Where had the phone gone?

"You're one to talk," he responds after a moment's pause. His tone is amused, but drops to contemplative when he goes on to note, "You're out here all by yourself."

"No, I'm with you," Mildred half-blurts (mainly because she's not sure of her line, and it works as well as anything), then feels rather silly about it.

His eyebrows lift, transforming his expression into one of befuzzled incredulity, as if he can't believe he really heard what he _thought_ he just heard. To be fair, it's not like she's _wrong_ , even if she _is_ being a bit literal.

"I'm sorry?" he asks quite mildly.

Feeling a wayward blush threatening to rise, she repeats more slowly, "I'm not alone – you're here."

This pronouncement has him swallowing, and her eyes can't help but follow the motion of his adam's apple rising and falling. She's sure his eyes are several shades darker than they were just a second ago, and... _damn_ he looks good. Of course, he also sort of looks like he's considering eating her; given what he is, that makes a whole lot of sense – but somehow the tension she's created between them doesn't _feel_ threatening.

Again she wonders what kind of dream this is. Is it the kind where she's going to be chased by a bloodthirsty vampire boasting few-to-no morals, or the kind where she decides to throw caution to the wind and get down and dirty with one? Or possibly this dream could be _both_ these things...that might be entertaining.

Whatever it is, the moment passes.

Voice carefully restrained, Damon pointedly asks, "What's with the dandelions? Though making your own tea was just for grandmas and weird hippie herbalists with crystals and shit."

She glances down at the ignored dandelion bouquet, asking herself why her dreams are always full of the things. These ones are particularly magnificent – they're not ten feet tall like the forest of them she'd dreamed up a few weeks ago, but they're special for the way they seem to hang on the cusp, somewhere between yellow flower and terminal seed-clock.

Does it even matter why? He's probably considering making her his desert, and she's entranced by some weeds… Wait – are dream-vampires as ravenous as the real thing? (Not that there _is_ such a thing as vampires in the waking-world, but...how accurate to myth is this shade of one her mind has conjured for her to play with?)

Pushing aside the thought, Mildred decides to tell him, "I like them – they're...floofy, and bright. Besides, this is Mystic Falls, isn't it? Nothing bad ever happens here. Well – almost never… Except that _one_ time…"

She trails off, only faintly concluding with, "No harm in being out alone," while thinking, _No harm ever came from reading a book. You remember how that one went?_

With hindsight, the main characters' line are kind of hilarious in this scene. Nothing bad ever happens in Mystic Falls her _ass_! There was all that murder-most-foul shit that went down in the 1800s. Plus, she's pretty sure the place was a bloodbath in episodes toward the end of the series (though admittedly she hadn't been paying that much attention by then, so she's not precisely sure how it all happened).

"That one time?"

Mildred just shakes her head in response to his query – it's not really important. She's in no mood to explain the plot of the Vampire Diaries to another part of her own subconscious (because one – it really ought to know already, and two – it's _way_ too much like talking to herself). Instead, she glosses over her previous musings on the safety – or lack thereof – of the fictional town.

"Don't worry about it, just thinking out loud – it was a long time ago," And entirely irrelevant to her dreams plot (whatever that is). "So, what _are_ you doing out here, Mr. Tall Dark and Sinister?" she asks, hoping to get to the point where this slow-moving scene either transforms into a chase, a seduction, or – drumroll please – _both_.

"Would you believe me if I said 'aimlessly lying in the middle of the road?"

"Sure – I'd _half_ believe you."

Head tilted, he curiously asks, "Which half?" His eyes even crinkle, which is cute.

"Just the left half," she responds flippantly, before answering more properly. "The laying in the road bit. Aimlessly though? I doubt it."

Fumbling in her pockets for the vanishing-cell, she comes up victorious. She doesn't do her patented victory-dance...well, at least not on the _outside_. According to the – embarrassingly ancient, actually – device, time's passing relatively predictably here. It's strange – sometimes there are proper clocks in her dreamscapes and the hands almost always spin nonsensically...and not necessarily only in a forward direction.

"Look, can we get a move on?" she prompts, feeling all kinds of impatient. Dreams are short and always end before the good bit. "I'm kind of on a schedule."

One of his eyebrows shoots up. "Get a move on? Did you make plans without telling me _again_ , snookums?"

Mildred huffs agitatedly at his sarcasm, muttering to herself, "Okay, I'm totally going to pretend you didn't just call me _snookums."_

On TV Damon had been an easy lay, a bit of a man-slut. This Damon's...needlessly playing hard-to-get like he's worried she was here to corrupt his virtue. Yeah – as if he has any of _that_ left. And okay, maybe he wasn't playing coy – maybe it's because he just met his evil-ex's doppelganger on a road in the middle of nowhere (middle of nowhere, but hauntingly close to the last place he must've seen _actual_ Catherine) and it's throwing him off base. Also, even the loosest of bar-wet lips probably doesn't usually decide to hump him as soon as look at him… Or, maybe they do, but this is just... _not_ a situation he's prepared for in any way.

So she's got to take the reigns on this one. It's out of her usual comfort zone but rejection seems unlikely – not like there's much chance he's going to turn down Catherine two-point-oh.

She proves her own hypotheses by stepping forward to close the – surprisingly proprietary – space between them. This is the last episode she and Lucy had watched, and she recalls pretty well that in this scene Elena's parents come to pick her up. Their car's due to arrive soon. If Mildred's in the character's place, then they'll be showing up any second to ruin her fun (her dreams tend to be rubbishly accurate like that).

She wonders vaguely exactly how long she's got, and if it's advisable to do this at all… Her mind only shrugs – no harm in worrying about things she can't be bothered to change.

Her dream-vampire seems shocked when she presses her lips to his.

He lets out a strange sound of surprise, somewhere between a gasp and a relieved sigh, before showing enough initiative to kiss her back. A strange electricity, a _familiarity_ shudders down her spine – as if this is something they've done before. She brushes the feeling off in favor of cataloging other things: He smells like the air after a thunderstorm, some extravagant aftershave she probably couldn't afford on her paycheck, and he tastes like oranges and spice and copper… He must've eaten a carol singer recently.

Yeah, 'lying aimlessly in the road' her ass!

It's miles better than most dream kisses tend to be – more real, more present. Damon's lips aren't that soft; they're dry and rough from being outside too long, and feel as if he'd been lying _face down_ on the road rather than staring up at the sky as she imagined. His arms wind around her middle, nearly lifting her off the ground but for the tips of her toes, and Mildred lets out a delighted squeak, wrapping her dandelion-encumbered hands around the back of his neck to stay steady.

Warmth floods her entire body, a tide coming in from nowhere to pour down her spine, coil in her belly and cause what is probably a very noticeable (to a vampire nose, anyway) wetness in her panties. When one of his hands brazenly slides beneath the clingy fabric of her top, his thumb tracing along her bottom-most ribs before continuing to palm her right breast over her bra, she's damn glad she decided to make this dream go the way _she_ wants.

It's hard to say how long passes in this way. Time's all but inconsequential when you're dreaming, and it hasn't much bearing when you're getting lucky, either; when both occur it becomes a concept without reason.

What she knows is that her nipples are painfully hard, pebbling in the cool night air; there's a breeze across her chest, thus she must be exposed. She knows her core is riding high on his thigh, and she can feel his interest in proceedings rubbing against her hip. She knows her hair has slipped its band because half of it's wound about one of his hands and he keeps _tugging…_

_God – fuck –_

                               she doesn't _ever_ want this to end.

Some of the initial fire has ebbed – just enough to give her the faculty to decide to have him take her into the woods for a good seeing to – when a glaring light cuts into the very steamy picture they must make. There's a disgruntled rumble rising in his chest, and Damon goes to pull away from her. She catches him by his jacket and yanks him back, not ready for such a pleasant experience to be over yet. This might be a dream, but he's _one hell of a kisser._

It's the repeated honking of a car horn that forces them to part. Mildred retreats in defeat, leaning her forehead against his with a wistful sigh. Her free hand tugs her bra and top back up to cover her breasts.

Wearing the proper clothing again, coupled with a heavy sigh, her whole body snaps around to face the disturbance the moment her feet are back on the ground. She glares at the vehicle with the gall to interrupt them… No mind that _they're_ the ones out of place, because this is a road and cars have right of way. It's a dream place – she _rules_ the roads as far as she's concerned.

Then she remembers that Elena's parents are the ones in the vehicle, are the dream-parents so rudely preventing her from getting her freak on with this super-hot vampire. She must look pretty much parental-advisory at this point – certainly too thoroughly debauched to be fit for public consumption.

Now she knows what sort of dream this is. It's like the horrible ones she'd sometimes have as a kid, where she forgot to take her gym-kit to school so the coach would force her to run track nude… An embarrassment dream. She was making out with a vampire in the middle of the road in front of make-believe authority figures. If this were reality it would suck majorly.

Mildred coughs distractedly – because this is awkward...and because her throat is dry as the Sahara – feeling Damon still hard at her back. "Uh, I'm so sorry," she mumbles, craning her neck back to look at him.

"For what? Not exactly _your_ fault you jumped me – I just really am that hot," he states smugly, suggestively, his eyebrows all over the place in that expressive manner she'd always appreciated about his screen-character.

"No – it's my parents," she elaborates, gesturing to the car. "They're here to pick me up..."

"Hmmm...that's regrettable," he murmurs directly into her ear, apparently not too decent to come onto a girl with her parents staring right at him. "I guess we'll just have to continue this-" he pulls her hips back against his, bringing her bottom more firmly into contact with his waning hardness, causing her pussy to clench despite the audience "- _later_."

     He's totally shameless.

Heart stuttering, Mildred breathes, "Yeah, _later_..."

Hit with a sudden flash of how this episode goes on and feeling shaky – her brain not at full function with him all around her – she ramblingly adds, "Actually, uh, rain check… I've got an appointment to drown in a half-hour, then there'll be funerals and stuff..." He's chewing on the outer-edge of her ear now, and she groans wantonly. "I- I'll pencil you in for June twenty-two, yeah? My birthday."

She can _hear_ his smirk as he purrs, "And what a gift I'll be… You have yourself a deal, _s_ _nookums_."

Mildred can only be thankful he chose not to comment on her drowning-appointment. He must think it's a joke.

Apparently having had enough of her gratuitous stalling, Elena Gilbert's father (what's his name? Graham, Gayson or something?) gets out the car looking very, very mad. He slams the door behind him. To be honest, she's a bit surprised it took him so long to act – then again, she has some measure of control over the actions of the denizens of her dreams, and she hadn't _wanted_ interruptions at all… She got half her way, at least.

She knows she needs to get into the vehicle. Whatever influence she has over the plots of her dreams, sometimes certain things are entirely outside of her ability to change. The mood's definitely been lost. Pulling it back – vanishing the parents and the car so she can return to necking with hottie-vampire – would be almost impossible at this point. Things have just shifted too much.

Elena's father's in shouting distance now. She knows this because his sharp voice is yelling, "I don't know who the hell you are, but get your hands off my daughter!"

He marches right up to she and Damon, looking the vampire right in the eyes. Brave man – or just a stupid one…

Reluctantly stepping out of Damon's grasp, Mildred turns to take a last look at him just in time to see him raise his hands, palms out in the universal sign for 'I surrender' (or possibly 'I didn't do anything wrong').

"I was just leaving," he announced in a deep, could-be-considered creepy rasp, his eyes alight with cold flame and danger. "Got other things to be doing anyway – grab a snack, sort my car, move back into the family digs… It's a _busy_ night," he notes thoughtfully, clearly mocking Elena's father.

" _You_ , he tacks on, pinning Mildred with a lascivious look which has to be banned in at least the lower forty-eight, "I will see soon. June twenty-second – I won't forget."

Then the delicious vampire's leaving, making her whole dream a lot duller – it even starts to rain. He whistles as he goes – a clear, haunting sort of tune that sounds somewhat familiar, as if it's something she heard in a dream once… Wait, this _is_ a dream… So it's a melody that she perhaps heard in a _different_ dream, a long time ago. Perhaps if she can recall it past waking, and associates it with this particular dream, she'll be able to have it again another night. The thought brings a small, secret smile to dance across her lips.

Pleased with the thought of doing this whole dream again at some point – but doing it better...you know, by not getting caught by her 'parents' – Mildred gets into the car. She stumbles a few times, not completely coordinated even in a make-believe place where she ought to be, by all rights, a god. The vehicle has a leather interior which, to be frank, has probably seen better days; the brown seats are soft and worn, like a jacket that's been through the laundry one too many times, and smell faintly of mothballs. The age and disrepair of the vehicle is odd, considering the Gilberts' are supposed to be one of Mystic Falls' premier families and very well off.

There's a child safety seat in the back, and a little girl is snoozing in it. Mildred doesn't recognize the child, can't recall who she is on the show, so the girl must be some creation of her own. She looks to be about three years old and has a wild mop of reddish-blond curls atop her head. She's wearing a little mauve princess dress, clutching a star-topped toy wand like it's a teddy bear.

As soon as Mildred's buckled her seat belt, the car trundling off down the road jerkily, the two adults in the front set in on her. She tosses the bouquet of dandelions onto the seat between her and the sleeping girl.

"Just what do you think you're doing!" the woman exclaims furiously (she might be called Miranda). She has auburn hair and, it seems, the generally stereotypical temper to match. "Just a couple of days ago you were debating how you could let poor Matt – who's completely smitten with you, need I remind you – down gently, and now you're letting some lech you...what, _met at a party_ , paw all over you? And we'll be talking about that _later_ – let me tell you! ...Where's the good girl I raised to be honest, considerate of other's feelings? Poor Matt… Who _was_ that man? He was _far_ too old for you!"

This time when Mildred huffs it is louder than ever. She feels almost like the teenager whose place she's filling (rather than a twenty-seven-year-old woman who, shamefully, still has to rely on her _own_ parents half the time). It's almost as bad as when she'd been seventeen and her dad caught her making out with Roy Nation in the back of his brand new Corvette (which, she later found out, he was calling the Panty Dropper, and he was a nasty, two-timing bastard all round).

Elena's mother certainly knows how to scold.

This seriously sucks. It's gone from a make-out dream to a getting-a-tongue-lashing dream in a matter of moments. Apparently even in her own head, Mildred can't suspend disbelief for long enough to actually have a bit of fun. Guess that's what happens when you're the type whose dreams have proper – and mostly realistic, but for a few Sci-Fi Junkie Weekly elements of out-of-this-worldness every now and then – plots.

Fiddling with her phone in annoyance, Mildred idly punches a message out and sends it to the first person in the phone-book. It reads simply: _Fuck my life_ , with no further elaboration.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?" Miranda prompts when Mildred just sits there in grumpy silence, watching the steady breathing of the child beside her rather than giving an explanation of her risqué behavior.

The cell vibrates in her lap.

 _**From** _ **Bonnie:** _Whats wrong_

The Gilbert parents know about vampires, right? In the show, they had all those weapons hidden away up at their lake house. Useful plot element right now...a scapegoat.

"I- I don't know what came over me," Mildred whines pathetically, trying to put on a good show of woe-is-me teenage hormone-cocktail, with a healthy dollop of innocent confusion on top. "I was on the phone… Then you were honking at me and that guy! _I don't know what happened..._ "

There, that ought to do it.

 _**To** _ **Bonnie:** _Ps caught me mcking_  
_on superhot guy I met._  
_So embrssed_

Elena's parents share what Mildred can only assume is a significant, vampire-in-town look. She notices the father's hands grip the steering wheel so tight his knuckles have turned white.

In a strained voice, the man demands, "Did he force you, Gloria?"

Frowning as if she doesn't entirely understand what he's getting at, Mildred insists, "No, _no_ – of course not!" There's no way, she thinks as she gets into character a bit more, she's going to make herself out to be some damsel-in-distress who lets a guy do something to her she doesn't want.

With a wide-open expression, she confesses somewhat contritely, "I just _really_ wanted to kiss him all of a sudden, like I… I don't know, like I _had_ to. Like I said, I don't know what came over me." She knows what she would have _liked_ to come over her, though. Laying it on thick, she passionately swears, "It won't happen again," in that over-dramatic way teenagers often have. "So _please_ don't tell Matt, it would break his heart!"

Those acting classes her ma always said were a waste of time and money (even _after_ Mildred managed to secure a paying job in the industry) were totally worth it. Though this _is_ a dream...so the apparent believability of her performance doesn't really mean much. She's faking-out people her own subconscious conjured – not really something to put on her resume.

"We won't, honey, but _you're_ going to have to," Elena's mother sniffs, then settles back into silence.

That's totally unfair. Everything Mildred said should leave Elena's parents believing their daughter was compelled by a vampire (a majorly gorgeous vampire they caught her sucking face with on a deserted highway, which is surely way out-of-character for her), but they still think she should take the fall for it.

Urgh, the show's drama would've been way more difficult for characters to deal with if Elena's parents hadn't died before the first episode. Mildred guesses that explains why all the authority figures of the main-group were systematically killed off in the first three seasons: Parent's don't make for good teenage-angst/witch-vampire mayhem, they just get in the way. Without the Gilbert parents, the aunt and uncle, the Mayor and his wife, and Bonnie's grandmother in the picture, it must've been a lot easier to write plots where a bunch of adolescents do outrageous things yet somehow manage to avoid real-world punishments. It's almost surprising the Sheriff and Alaric survived as long as they did… Though admittedly the latter wasn't much of a parental role-model.

 _**From** _ **Bonnie:** _OMG! U so have to brk_  
_w/ matt_  
_**From** _ **Bonnie:** _How hot?  
_ _**From** _ **Bonnie:** _FWIW nt judging u_

 _**To** _ **Bonnie:** _Gd  
_ _**To** _ **Bonnie:** _And vry hot!_

 _**From** _ **Bonnie:** _More dets_

 _**To** _ **Bonnie:** _Amazing kisser, irrstibly hot._  
_Srsly, 2nd base w/in 5mins_ _of_  
                        meeting kinda hot, _n_ _wud_ _go_  
                        further deffo

 _**From** _ **Bonnie:** _HOTY lucky b! More dets_  
_2moro tho. Tell matt, this  
                                nt_ _fair to him._

Sighing over the complete pointlessness of her juvenile, imaginary conversation, she responds tiredly. She's ready to get out of here.

 _**To** _ **Bonnie:** _Sure, ur rite. Will do 2moro.  
__TTYL_

It's about time to wake up, Mildred muses, bored by the frigid atmosphere of the car and the drive to 's not as if she knows these roads, and it's hard to see now it's gotten blustery outside, slamming rain against the windows – they could literally be anywhere. If Elena's parents didn't do something interesting soon (like turn into Donna and the Doctor, admit the car's a well-disguised TARDIS and take her on a magical mystery tour of the universe) then she might just die of boredom.

Trying to wake herself doesn't work, however.

Frowning down at her own hand in confusion, she quickly locates the little red-marker A she habitually draws onto the skin between her thumb and forefinger each morning. It's almost a talisman, a way to differentiate between dreams and reality.

The old A method is twofold. First, the mark's something she notices regularly in her day to day life, and every time she spots it she stops for a moment to decide whether she's awake or asleep. After a few years doing this, it's become second-nature to her. The mark doesn't always show up in dreams, though, which is usually an instant give away she's sleeping and can do whatever the hell she likes. In dream-world she's as close to a deity as it's possible for a human to be.

While the first part of the A method involves identifying whether she's asleep or away, the second part's about taking control of the dream once she's successfully identified she's in one. Depending on the type of dream she's having, taking control can range from floating away on the air to get away from something nasty her psyche's chucked at her (though sometimes it takes a few tries, and more than once has failed entirely), to force-waking herself if things really aren't going the way she wants them to.

Mildred's never been frightened by the more common sorts of nightmare. Mostly she enjoys the thrill of them, waking with a smile and her heart racing, stretching out adrenaline-taught limbs like a feline. The few times she'd been genuinely freaked out by a dream they were about things most people would consider quite inconspicuous (like the one where her cat was lost and alone in the cold, and she'd been unable to do anything about it).

Most the time she chooses to go with the flow in her dreams. She didn't go into learning how to control them because she was plagued with horrific night-terrors or something, but simply for the fun of it, for the sheer thrill. It's nice to have a place entirely your own, one which will fold and shift to meet your desires. It's a hell of a lot better than the real-life she leads, anyway, in which her working week currently involves performing in a b-rate production of Oklahoma in Boston; the rest of her time is usually divided between halfheartedly trying to convince her parents her acting career isn't doomed, and coaching her friend Lucy through her never ending bad-boy phase.

 _This_ though...this is _beyond weird._

Mildred jams her nails into the A, trying to wake herself up with a shock of pain.

     Nothing happens.

When the car careens off the edge of the bridge, she's genuinely surprised. The confusion of being unable to rouse herself from sleep is such a disconcerting one that she's forgotten where she is, and what's suppose to happen in this episode of the Vampire Diaries she's hijacked.

Her heart stutters in horror. She doesn't like drowning in dreams – she's never figured out how to trick her body into believing she can breathe underwater. Apparently such a thing's way more outlandish than _flying_.

Nothing goes in slow motion.

Mildred hears the shrieks of the child in the safety seat long before she experiences the jarring impact of the car hitting the river. In the front, Miranda's head slams into the dash hard, and Elena's father lets out an involuntary yelp of surprise and terror. The vehicle goes in head first – beginning to fill up with water immediately – but levels as it sinks.

     Momentarily dazed from the impact–

          The sound of a little girl screeching–

               Face red, streaked with huge tears still clutching that toy wand like it's the whole world…

Snapping out of it, Mildred realizes she needs to get further across the car if she wants to save the child before water completely engulfs her small body. She tries to get her own belt off. It's drawn tight back into the chair, though, an iron hand pinning her in place.

In the front seat, Elena's father's still conscious. "We're going to be okay," he promises stably, trying to reassure her. "It's going to be okay. You've got to get Maggie out her seat, alright?"

Mildred nods her assent shakily, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to think clearly. Water's up to the little girl's neck now, not leaving much time to deliberate, and she's still screeching. Comically, the sunshine-bright dandelions bob around them, having gotten loose from whatever binding previously held them together.

"Listen! Listen to me," Mildred begs, reaching over to take one of the girl's hands and placing the other on her cheek. "You need to take a big breath now. Yeah, can you do that for me? Big breath?"

The child nods. Just as the water reaches her mouth, she sucks in a massive, gulping breath.

One hand twisted awkwardly, unable to shift her own body, Mildred manages to fumble to buckle of the safety seat undone. She tugs the child out of it, lifting the girl up and out the water. The little girl gasps as she breaks the surface, clutching Mildred tightly.

Is this still a dream?     It feels so real.

     Why can't she wake up?

Mildred's still trapped by her belt, and all the windows are firmly shut. There's now way the child can get out the car; perhaps freeing her from the safety seat has only prolonged her death.

This isn't the first time Mildred's drowned in a dream – just the least pleasant occasion she has done so. Both she and the blond girl are back under the water now; they cling to one another, the only thing you can do when faced with certain death. Usually, when she kicks it in a dream it's quick and she's awake again, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom before she's even had time to process what happened.

This time is vastly different.

     Why can't she wake from this nightmare?     It makes no sense.

Blurry underwater vision grows even more distorted, a lack of oxygen causing the scene to vignette. The urge to breath's almost overwhelming – she's definitely not grown gills yet. The child in her arms feels far too limp, though the slight shudder in her tiny limbs shows she's still alive. Mildred's head pounds with the panicky, racehorse beat of her pulse, hurting way more than any imaginary pain has the right to.

Once she was shot in a dream. She'd spent an indiscernible amount of time bleeding out before finally dying and waking up in reality, but that hadn't felt anything like this. Her chest burns as if hot coals have been stuffed in her lungs, and the little girl's going to die right here with her.

     It's not real. It's _notreal_.

          so

_why can't I wake up?_

There comes a pressure change in the vehicle, only perceptible to her senses because her entire world has narrowed down to the flow of water and clothing and the little girl's hair across her skin, and her insides are nothing more than fire and an internal scream of _wake up, wake upwakeup!_

There's a tugging at her navel.

Her grip on the child tightens reflexively. A little ball of something wonderful begins to swell in her chest… A part of her's rejoicing. Has she managed to create some kind of dream-portkey to whisk them to safety? If yes, she needs to do crossovers more often; clearly limiting her subconscious to one universe at a time can potentially result in an unpleasant, watery demise.

Portkey or no portkey, she still wants to wake up now, because this rea-

          She blacks out before breaking the surface.

 


	2. In Between and Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Mary Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: In a place that isn't anywhere, voices keep speaking to her and about her. Then in a solid-place which is entirely impossible, she becomes the unfortunate target of her brain's very own gaslighting game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT (and embarrassing): This chapter has odd formatting -- it should sort of flow, there shouldn't be double-gaps between the lines (there should only be big line spacing between sections), so if it's coming up weird then please, oh please make you're window wider! I was mortified when I realized AO3's very nice, very clever adaptive page made my formatting go haywire if the browser window was too small... But by then I'd spent so long formatting it like this (something which I'd been tragically unable to do on FFnet), I couldn't stand to revert it again... Please forgive me my idiocy!

 

 

 

_may  
_ in between

 

 

_" **What– What if she doesn't wake up?"**_

_"She will, Jere — the doctors said it's just_  
_a little bit of damage, she was without_  
_oxygen too long. They said it's healing real_  
_quickly. She'll wake up."_

_"She might not, or she might be permanently_  
_damaged, or... You're just saying it to make me_  
_feel better. **Don't**."_

_"Hey, listen to me, neurobiology's my minor._  
_This kind of damage, visibly healing the way it is,_  
_it's not permanent. Gloria **will** wake up."_

_"They said that sort of stuff about Dad — then he, he..."_

_"Hey, I **know**. It's okay, it'll be okay."_

_"It's not okay! In what way is_  
_any of this okay? No Keira, Mom and_  
_Dad dead, Mags hasn't spoken since she_  
_woke up, and Gloria's in a_ frikkin _' **coma** for_  
fucks _sake! **How is any of this ever  
                  going to be okay?**"_

_"I– I don't know..."_

_"Now, I ain't entirely sure you can here me in there, Mil, but_  
_I'm gonna give it a go anyway. Look, I know this all must be_  
_real confusing for you — Order's got no ideas on what's_  
_happening here, either, 'cause I asked them soon as I_  
_realized what'd gone down._

_"Know it sounds weird, but I'm beyond glad you're_  
_safe and okeydoke in there. Don't know what_  
_I'd've done if you'd actually been **gone**._

_"I've got a line out on a possible solver —_  
_Donatello, head of my Chapter, is doing some_  
_quick research as I speak. Mayhaps he'll be able_  
_to figure a work-round to getting you back where you_  
_should be. For now, you're just gonna have to hold out,_  
_okay. Go with it — enjoy it, even._

_"I'm trying to find me a way to come over more proper like, so_  
_I can at least help you better understand this mess of yourn. Thing is,_  
_dream-walker's ain't sposed to **stay** in their Images — I'm just borrowing _  
_me this form for now, but I'll have to hand it back soon._

_"Moment I know more, I'll be letting you know. There's gotta be a way for me to_  
_hang about, get you out of here... I don't know. Just hang on for me, okay?_

_"How is she today, Dr. Fell? I keep telling Jeremy she'll wake up, but...I don't know if I believe it myself._  
_It's been five days already... He just can't afford to lose anyone else."_

_"There's no miracle cure for an injury like this. Physically she's well — only minor contusions, a little whip-lash, no_  
_broken bones. Comparing her brain scan from when she was first brought in to the one done yesterday, all I can say_  
_is your niece is a remarkably resilient young woman — the swelling's gone down significantly, the afflicted regions of her_  
_brain are healing with little-to-no visible scar tissue. It's astounding — off the record, I've got every confidence she'll wake."_

_"Yeah, wake up to find her parents are dead, her aunt's camping in their bedroom, her sister's gone mute, and her evil Uncle John's_  
_presiding over the house like king of the castle. Some homecoming... Urgh, I can't believe I used to go out with that scumbag..."_

_"Well, there's not much I can do about all that — perhaps a therapist?"_

_"The Gilberts in therapy? Who's going to pay for the **therapist's** therapy bills?"_

_"You're going to be okay, Jen. Miranda was a great woman and her kids are great, too — you'll make it._

_"Sometimes it feels like I drowned with them. Jeremy's just... I don't know how to reach him._

_"We can't have the funeral without her! That's just so **wrong**! What the fu–_  
_no, no! They're **her** parents too!"_

_"Come on, she woke up and started raving about this not being her life,_  
_not being Gloria Gilbert, not understanding what's going on. Jeremy,_  
_we have to face  the possibility Gloria won't be well for a long time."_

_"She was awake? Why didn't anyone tell me? Well, why's she_  
_out again? I  want to talk to her."_

_"She was hysterical — trying to get out of bed, out the_  
_hospital. She kept saying this wasn't real, that she_  
_was dreaming. They think perhaps the accident_  
_caused her to...disassociate, create some_  
_kind of fantasy where she's got parents_  
_who're alive and Gloria Gilbert's a_  
_fictional character. They had to_  
_sedate her."_

_"Like on TV — a coma_  
_and a dream.  Like_  
_that Life on Mars_  
_show?"_

_"Perhaps..."_

_"Look, John, I think_  
_Jeremy's right. It wouldn't_  
_be right to have the funeral without_  
_her. I'm not saying we can't if she doesn't_  
_improve, but...she's only woken once. Have them_  
_wake her up again, give her a chance to..._  
_normalize."_

_"Okay... I can see I'm outvoted here."_

_"Let's talk to Dr. Fell."_

_"Hey... I know you're still in there —_  
_I don't know if it sounds silly, but I'm already_  
_talking to someone in a coma and if that's not stupid_  
_I don't know what is...and if you remember this then I guess_  
_it means talking to you wasn't stupid at all because you **can** hear me..._  
  
_"and..._

_"Sorry, I'm rambling._

_"It might sound stupid, but I **know** you're still in there. I can **feel** you, so you're definitely not gone._  
_I'm going away for a while with Grams. I stopped by to tell you...well, I don't want you to think I don't care,_  
_because I do, you **know** I do. But this has hit the family pretty hard, and I just can't..._

_"God, you're really sick — I can't believe Aunty Andie's gone. And there's something weird happening to me — it's been weird_  
_a while, ever since we had that séance ages ago, but now it's gotten really... I mean, it's not just funny feelings and impressions anymore._  
_When we were dancing at the bonfire, I totally saw you drowning...and I just laughed it off as some freaky fluke but... Then it **actually happened** , and..._

_"God, what if I could've **stopped** it!_

_"I **saw** you were going to drown and I didn't say anything because...well, it was stupid! I am **so** sorry — I just didn't...I didn't know what I was seeing was **real**.  
                                                                                                                                                        I don't _ _even understand how it could be. This is insane..._

_"Gram's taking me to a retreat for psychics up in Nova Scotia, if you can believe it? I don't get it, but she recommended the place after I went and had a mental_  
_breakdown in our kitchen and blurted everything out. She says psychics run in the family, and I need to get a handle on the ability or I could end up...I_  
_don't know, lost or something. That's how she kind of described it._

_"She kept going on about how our family descended from some really cool druid chicks, and how sometimes the abilities were_ real _strong_  
_for some of the women in our line... I'd think she was just drunk again, but...what I saw..._

_"You have to know — I saw darkness. Not just water, and the sense of being trapped. I saw...you were humming, a song I don't_  
_know, and there was a crow, and Miss Fell and **lots** of fog...and so much blood everywhere. And fire, definitely fire — _  
_something's going to burn._

_"There's something coming — and I know it sounds like I've lost my mind, but I really believe it!_

_"You were with a man — not Matt, so I guess you're finally going to break up with him!_

_"Sorry, I shouldn't joke, but everything's just so...I don't know, it's like I'm in a_  
_whole new world, and everything's wrong. Like seeing things from_ the  
other _side of a mirror or something._

_"And I know you probably can't hear this, but I wanted to_  
_explain myself, for you to know why I won't be here_  
_when you wake up. I've got to sort this out,_  
_because what if it happens again?_  
  
_What if I could help someone and I just_  
_ignore it because I'm ignorant and don't believe_  
_in 'visions' and stuff. I owe it to you to try and do better,_  
_**be** better..._

_"I'll be back by your birthday, yeah? I promise._

_"God, I'm so sorry... For everything._

_"For not trusting my instincts, for leaving_  
_You when you're like this. Just for everything..."_

_"I can't guarantee anything. Her scans look nearly normal, but a traumatic event like this... I've spoken with Dr. Faust_  
_— he says her episode was likely_ a _one-off thing. Even if it wasn't, symptoms shouldn't persist for longer than a_ few _weeks._  
_The shock of an accident like this can sometimes have odd, lingering_ effects which _may present as mild psychosis. As she doesn't_  
_have a history of mental illness,  we won't be considering her delusional just yet."_

_"She's important to me, Merida. She's my brother's daughter, and af– after her sister... I_ need to _know, did she say_  
_anything that could possibly be construed as...Council business?"_

_"Not that I noticed. We jotted down some of what she said, but to be honest she took us by surprise."_

_"A hospitalized teenage girl, recovering from a major accident, somehow got the drop on you?_  
_That's hard to believe."_

_"It's true... It was just after Fara stopped in. Gloria was disoriented, halfway out the hospital before we_  
_realized what was happening. And a week ago she was brain-dead! Six days ago she_ was _healing at a_  
_preternatural rate. I think it's safe to say, if she knows the ins and outs of town history or not, she's come_  
_into contact with a... **you know**. There's no other way she could've returned from being braindead  like that,_  
_short of divine intervention."_

_"Which makes the question what she remembers..."_

_"I think the **question** is how she and Magda got out the car in time to avoid their parents' fate? Grayson was far_  
_worse  off than they were, and Miranda was dead at the scene."_

_"It's definitely a mystery — one the Council's not to be alerted to. I'll be investigating this myself."_

_"If she **was** healed by a...you know what... Well, that brings a lot of things into question. The whole Council's beliefs,_  
_for one. An act like that would be kind, charitable, would imply soft emotions... That's not what we've been taught to_  
_believe of **them**."_

_"They're monsters, there's no doubt about it. If one of them saved her it was because it **wants** her for something."_

_"What could a creature like that possibly want with a girl it doesn't even know? It was obviously a chance encounter,  no_  
_premeditation. I think you're wrong."_

_"I **hope** I'm wrong."_

_"Time to wake up today, Glore._

_"Mom and Dad are– they're gone, you can't leave me too._  
_You promised, remember? When Keira died you promised you'd always be_  
here, you'd _never leave me._

_"We've already buried them, you know? I guess it just couldn't wait anymore. Half the town turned_  
_out — it's funny, really...I mean, I guess I just didn't realize how many people knew them... They're just Mom-and-Dad_  
_to us, but to everyone else they're 'the Gilberts', this Founding Family big deal. It's not all pointless parties and dull council meetings,_  
_apparently — looks like Founder's get more flowers when they kick the bucket. As if that does any good._

_"Do me a favor when they wake you up — don't be nuts, yeah? Just try not to be crazy this time... You can't leave me and Mag alone with Jenna and Uncle John_  
_— the two of them'll kill each other then we'll be properly stuffed... I love Grandpa and all, but there's no **way** I want to live out at his place. I mean,                            _ _it'd almost be worth it just for the beach...but if he ever had any marbles he sold them..."_

 

 

 

_may_  
interrogation

 

 

**The world was fuzzy from the inside.**

A string of colors floated across a semi-maroon background, a psychedelic rope shifting and distorting in ruddy waters. Her eyes were closed, fluorescent lights piercing through the thin skin of her eyelids and coming out the color of blood. Her heartbeat was a deep drum thumping through her whole body, offset by a stable, high-frequency beep emitting from somewhere nearby. There were heavy, bated breaths hanging in the air, making her feel overheated, stifled.

With a deep breath of her own, rolling her head a little to try and undo a knot in her neck, Mildred opened her eyes to a sea of expectant faces. There were five other people in the stark off-white room: Two men, a younger boy, and two women. They were all peering down at her anxiously, various degrees of hope, expectation and resignation clear in their expressions. Obviously, she was supposed to say something to allay whatever worries they may have.

Really they ought to be allaying _her_ fears – was she still dreaming? That was...not normal.

Anyway, they were waiting for her to speak. 'Hi' seemed a bit more blasé than the situation called for. 'I knew I shouldn't have cut the brake-line' seemed too gauche for any whose humor wasn't blacker than a cup of milkless Death Wish Coffee. 'Why the fuck am I still in dreamland?' seemed to be a route that could only inevitably lead to her finding herself a long-term resident at a mental health facility.

Unsure precisely what she was going to open with, she began, "Uh… What-" she was saved from completely that non-thought, though, because her throat was very dry, and her voice caught halfway up it, causing her to go into a coughing fit.

One of the women present (the one in a black blouse, with caramel colored hair) rushed out the room. Moments later she reappeared with a plastic cup in her grasp. After Mildred took a few aided sips of water, she gave speech another try:

"What happened?"

There, that was innocuous enough, and surely something all people who unexpectedly wake up in hospital stuffed full of cannulas – and... Oh, ewww… Did she have a _catheter_? That was nasty – wanted to know first. If they didn't then they'd obviously taken one hell of a knock to the head and should probably be wheeled straight into the MRI. Or just delivered to psych.

It turned out to have been the correct question to ask to reduce her own discomfort, projecting it onto those around her with the type of ease that came from hours of practicing how to elicit certain emotional responses from an audience. Hesitant expressions crossed the faces of all in the room bar one tall, dark haired man in a white doctor's coat. The youngest of those around her stepped forward with a heavy sphere of silence around him, his brow furrowed inward and a bizarre mix of relief and worry in his brown eyes.

"You don't remember?" he asked carefully, crouching down a little once he reached the bedside so he could comfortably take her hand in his. "You were in an accident. But it's alright – you're okay, Glore… You're okay."

An accident?

Yeah, she remembered _that_ very vividly, but… it had just been a very surreal, tactile dream, right? It was part of that super-fun/horrifically embarrassing dream in which she toddled right into the Vampire Diaries. She's made out with a rather delicious, possible-sociopath of a vampire – who was technically undead, so did that make it necrophilia? – in front of imaginary parental figures, then drowned after the aforementioned parental figures' car ran off a bridge into a river. It was the sort of thing that tended to stick in your mind.

With thoughts of institutionalization close to the surface, and a hazy memory of somebody asking her – begging her, really – not to be crazy when she woke up, Mildred decided not to voice _anything_ that could be construed as odd. She might be sort of – okay, _majorly_ – freaked out right now, but she's never been one to ignore such a pained plea.

_Don't panic, don't forget your towel, work out what's going on._

So, she ventured, "There was water?"

The dark haired young man nodded in affirmation.

"And a party – a bonfire, right? I went to it… I meant to break up with Matt-" that was what Elena was doing right before her parents turned up, Mildred was sure "–but we were arguing and I chickened out."

Mildred deserved an Emmy for this shit.

"And?" the boy – he was Elena's brother? – asked then. "Do you remember anything after the party?"

_Well, I'm guessing I shouldn't mention the getting felt up by a bloodsucking fiend bit,_ she thought derisively, while trying to work out just how much she _should_ tell them. Perhaps she should just pretend to have complete amnesia – that was she could act like herself from here on out and no one would be suspicious about it… But no, because she already admitted to knowing Matt, about the party, etc. It was too late to play dumb.

"I called Mom to pick me up, right? I remember that," she said shakily, only half needing to fake the uncertain tremor in her voice. This situation wasn't normal in the slightest. "And then… Water, so much water. She woke up, she was crying… I couldn't- I couldn't, I couldn't-"

She got stuck in a loop, breathing heavily to reassure herself she wasn't still drowning, an innocent little girl bound in her embrace. Her fingers tightened on the boy's, gripping them so hard it must've been hurting him – to his credit, he didn't wince or draw his hands back. Mildred wasn't even sure if she was still acting, whether she was behaving this way because it was a normal, expected response someone might have after waking from a horrific accident, or because of the sudden, inexplicable sense-memory of water pushing in on her, the toddler's wails in her ears, and the fiery pain in her lungs… Fuck.

Finally, she managed to gasp out, "I drowned! Me and her, we drowned."

"No, you didn't," the boy insisted, complete certainty in his voice. "You're okay. You made it out."

"Mom and Dad?" Milderd asked, the question open ended but the implied meaning obvious. She looked away from Elena's brother to gauge the reactions of everyone else in the room: They seemed to be various degrees of sad, and all of them looked uneasy, full of dread. "Where are they? Why aren't they here? Is-

" _Did she drown?_ " she blurted suddenly, disregarding her previous unfinished sentence.

Her mind had shifted away from the importance of pretending to be scared over the possible fates of two people she didn't even know. Her thoughts now fell on the little girl whose life she'd so desperately wanted to save. If this was her reality for now, and that girl had truly drowned in her arms...well, she wasn't sure she could bear it.

The lower lip of the woman who had brought her water was trembling – Mildred wasn't sure, but she thought it might be Elena's aunt. The man who didn't seem to be a doctor (the blond one with sharp silver-blue eyes) stepped forward and cleared his throat.

Right beside her, the boy turned to shoot the blond man a cold look and shake his head. "I need to do this," he declared, sounding quite authoritative for someone so young.

"Gloria… Mags is okay – you got her out, you saved her...but, I don't really know how to say," he whispered brokenly, his dark eyes deep and haunted, "but they didn't make it. Mom – she was...she didn't even make it to the hospital. They think that she-" the boy cough-choked, clearly struggling to force the words out "-she was probably unconscious on impact, drowned quickly – she would've inhaled some water, wouldn't have been able to hold her breath. Dad managed to get out the car, when they brought him in they thought he might make it even if there was some brain damage, but...he- he died on Friday. It's just us now..."

Everyone stayed quiet to let her process. She appreciated it.

Tears welled up in Mildred's eyes, the impossible truth of the thing crashing down on her. This was all too real – people had _died_. There had been a real accident and she had _drowned…_

But it couldn't have actually happened, right? Because this place wasn't real, it was the Vampire Diaries. It was a fantastical young-adult drama written on the whim of some producers who were looking for a show that would get them good ratings, and...none of this made any sense! She'd been dreaming she was getting off with Damon Salvatore (which wasn't so odd – she'd lost count of the number of fictional characters her dream-self had decided to get up close and personal with over the years), but then she'd not been able to take control of her surrounding like she should be able to, so when the plot progressed she'd been stuck in the water…

Then she drowned...and didn't wake up in the bedroom of her shitty little two-room above the deli.

Except, she sort of _was_ waking up now, wasn't she? In the hospital, presumably in Mystic Falls, God knows how long afterward and surrounded by characters who were...well, just _characters_! Had she been in some kind of terrible accident in real life, and this was her outlandish coma-dream? If it _was_ , then why the hell couldn't she control it properly? A coma-dream was still a _dream_ , after all – if she were inside her own mind then surely she ought to be able to achieve all the same things she usually could when sleeping? Oh God...worst case this wasn't a dream, her 'real-life' was, and she was completely cuckoo for cream puffs.

Thankfully, those in the room seemed to be taking her extended silence as shock. In the far corner, the woman with lighter hair (the one who was probably Miranda's younger sister) was outright crying now, and Elena's brother's hands had gone very stiff around Mildred's own. She should probably do something to break the tension.

"I want to see her," Mildred announced randomly, no room for argument in her tone.

Okay… Not break the tension, then – just break the silence.

The blond man, who had been silent thus far (as had everyone bar the brother, actually), spoke up now. "Okay, that's fine – that's good. She wants to see you, we only didn't bring her along in case… Well, we thought it best she stay with the Forbes' for the day."

He had a reedy sort of voice. It was quite familiar and, though something in her gut said he should probably put her at ill-ease, she found herself relaxing in response to his words.

"Look," he continued, looking right at her but obviously addressing everyone in the room, "I think it might be a good idea for us to let the doctors do their thing now, Jeremy. How about you take your aunt to get a coffee-" he suggested, a hint of ulterior-motive underlying the warmth of his tone. Then, glancing over at the woman in question, he seemed to reevaluate her immediate needs. "-or some vodka? I can hold things here."

Mildred strained to remember the name of this 'aunt'. Now the blond man had given her a name to go with the face of the teenage boy who seemed so overjoyed – in a quiet, my-parents-just-died sort of way – she was alive – _Jeremy_. If only she knew who everyone else was. Had she been aware, when half-watching the show, there would one day be a majorly important pop-quiz on a subject like 'fictional characters orbiting Elena Gilbert of _the Vampire Diaries_ ', then she might have paid more attention.

Though Jeremy didn't look happy about it, he did do as the man requested. He promised Mildred he'd be back to visit later, once Aunt Jenna – and _Jenna_! Another name to a face – had calmed down a bit. The moment the two of them were out the door, the three adults remaining in the room set in on Mildred. She was strongly reminded of the Gilbert parents lecturing her just minutes before their deaths.

"Right then, time to get going," the doctor-looking man said, coming closer with a clipboard and an expression somewhere between dangerously-shrewd and intellectually-curious. "I'm Dr. Faust… I'd like for you to answer some basic questions for me, so I can get an idea of the effect the injuries you sustained has had on you neurologically.

"First, can you tell me what your name is?"

Mildred was the one at the bonfire, the one to meet Damon on the road, the one in the car when it crashed… Jeremy said it was just _them_ now – them and the little girl, who her 'brother' referred to as Mags – because their parents were dead. There had only been the four of them in the car, which suggested Elena didn't exist – or, more to the point, that Mildred was somehow taking her place in this dream world…

With that theory, she hesitantly responded, "Mildred Gilbert?" It came out as more a question than answer, but hopefully the doctor would just chalk that down to nerves.

Surprisingly, the man who'd sent Jeremy and Jenna away snorted. Mildred turned questioning eyes on him, confused by his response to her statement. Was her name _different_ here? So much for knowing her own name even when dreaming.

"Sorry, sorry," he chuckled, holding up one hand while the other shifted to the vicinity of his lips, clearly concealing an amused smile. "It's just...you've always hated that name. I picked it, you know – Mildred, I mean. Grayson thought it was a good, strong name… Your mother, however, didn't agree..."

"So...what is it then? I thought I was Mildred..."

"You are, Miss Gilbert," the doctor confirmed in a business-like manner. "Gloria Mildred Gilbert. Not to worry...what's a little misplaced forename among friends? Nothing to write home about – you got it for the most part. Now, who's the president?"

What year was it, even?

Where she was from Obama was president and Trump was being, rather loudly by some, declared a shoo-in to take top-office next (something she found frustrating but ill-equipped to do anything about). Was Obama still president here? How long had she been asleep?

"You know who the president is, right sweetie?" the blond man asked, looking crestfallen that Mildred hadn't answered immediately.

"Uh...Barack Obama?" she guessed, seeing as she had no way to deduce the year. Her fingers were crossed for anyone but _Trump_.

The men in the room exchanged a glance that wasn't at all encouraging. The woman's eyebrows rose.

"Okay... _not_ then," Mildred muttered to herself.

"Not to worry," the doctor said, though a frown belied his words. "It's Colin Macavoy."

Who was _that_?

"Now, can you tell me how old you are?"

This was sort of a tricky question – even if she knew the year it wouldn't be much help. Elena was seventeen when she got mixed up with vampires, and her eighteenth birthday didn't seem to come up for ages and ages on the show. That meant she'd probably not long had one when everything started. So…

"Seventeen?"

"That's right," Dr. Faust agreed, noting something down on his clipboard. "What's the square root of pi?"

That was a _routine_ question? It was a good job Mildred had a damn good memory for everything from script-lines to static numerical values. It just so happened the square root of pi had been both to her: It was in one of the Doctor Who scripts...and she – sad, pathetic, lonely – learned it to thirty decimal places with the hopes of having a party trick handy to impress geeky guys. She could also do the periodic table in order.

Taking a deep breath – and she _could_ breathe because she _wasn'_ _t_ _drowning_. That was _over_...it was over – she recited smugly, "One point seven seven two four five three eight five zero nine zero five five one six zero tw-"

The doctor cut her off. "Yes yes, we get the idea. I don't think there's anything wrong with your memory for learned information in that particular subject area."

Hah! Take _that_ Mr. Obama's Not the President!

Dr. Faust was rolling his eyes at her – probably because she was showing off – and the blond man was eyeing her with some genuine surprise. Guess the real Elena Gilbert – or whatever her name was... _Gloria_ Gilbert, or something – couldn't do _that_.

"Can you remind me which year Mystic Falls was founded?"

Was that even mentioned in the show? She was sure her obsessive best-friend had said something about it once – and if anyone knew their useless trivia then it was _Lucy_.

"Sixteen o-seven?"

"Hmmm, yes – the first of the Briton's permanent settlements in the country… And when was the Battle of White Oak Creek?"

Oh, this one was _easy_. "Eighteen sixty-four."

"Very good, Miss Gilbert. I see you haven't been slacking off on your town history," Dr. Faust crowed, looking pleased. He turned to the blond man and commented, "You must be very proud, John – the next-generation Gilbert historian."

John – _that_ was the man's name. He was Jeremy and Elena's uncle. She seemed to remember Damon snapping the guy's neck at a party, or something, even though she was sure he'd been in some episodes _after_ that, too. Then again, Elena Gilbert's friend rarely seemed to _stay_ dead – the fictional girl _was_ the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues.

"Can you tell me when your birthday is?"

Yes, she knew this one! "June twenty-second..." But what year? "Nineteen eighty...uh, something," she guessed stupidly, not having a clue.

She was seventeen, the cell-phone she'd been using in the car suggested in was post-millennium, so...what year was she born? It was like a horrible math/Clue game that was required to be completed with only half the circumstantial information and no calculator. She's always preferred word puzzles to algebra.

"You got the birthday itself, which is encouraging. Your year of birth, if you are interested, is nineteen eighty-eight," the doctor informed her magnanimously.

John added, "The same day Buddy Holly died – one of the most influential musicians the R of T ever produced."

Really? Hadn't he died in a plane crash in the _sixties_? She was sure it was a big deal because he'd been very talented but died so young. Also...what was the R of T?

Anyway, that would make the year (she did some quick math) what, late 2005 or early 2006? That was ten years ago. She's been about seventeen/eighteenish and still in school. She could hardly remember any events of that year.

Wait, though… That meant she and Elena Gilbert – the proper protagonist of the show) had the exact same birthday. Mildred's date of birth had _always_ been 06-22-88… That was kind of weird. Perhaps facts in this dream had been altered to match some of her real life? (Or perhaps this _was_ her real life. She really didn't want to consider that option.)

"Do you have any pets?"

She shrugged, shelving her reality-insanity fears. "I don't think so."

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Uh, two..." It _had_ to be two. There was Jeremy, like on the show, plus that little girl who almost drowned with her.

"Do you have any long-term illnesses, are you on any prescription medications?"

Stopping to think about it for a moment, she decided that other than Elena's funny vomiting-up-blood thing after she became a vampire, Mildred couldn't remember it ever being mention she was sick.

"Not that I recall."

"What grade are you in at school?"

Stefan Salvatore joined as a junior...but that was in the new semester, and the year was different here… But she _was_ seventeen, so that must mean…

"She's a– _I_ , I mean – _I'm_ a junior."

On and on it went like this, with John chewing on the edge of one of his thumbs with an air of agitation. The other doctor, the female one who had so far been too rude to introduce herself, was quiet all the while. Just when it seemed Dr. Faust would never stop interrogating her – checking to see if she was crazy, judging by Jeremy's words while she'd been out – it was finally over. The man closed up his clipboard and clicked his pen, sliding it into the top pocket of his lab-coat.

"Well, she seems perfectly cognizant of her surroundings and her interaction-" he stated, speaking as if she weren't even in the room "-while a bit confused, is well within the acceptable spectrum for somebody recovering from brain-trauma." He turned to the woman-doctor and advised, "I'd suggest a scheduled appointment with my brother in the coming weeks for post-incident psychological eval, but unless some kind of recurring symptoms present themselves, I do not believe there is any cause for concern."

With an affect of 'my work here is done', Dr. Faust strode from the room without bidding anyone farewell. As soon as he was gone the brown haired woman – also in a doctors' lab-coat – rose, shutting the door and snapping the blinds shut over the viewing-glass on the other side of the room.

_Not ominous at all…_

God, Mildred hoped they were just going to do a medical examination which required her to be naked – and therefore also required privacy – because being trapped in a small room, weak and frail and tubed into a hospital bed, with two strangers in a make-believe world that often didn't punish first-degree murder… Well, it was unsettling.

"So, Gloria," the woman began unprofessionally, "I'm Dr. Merida Fell. I've been looking after you since you were admitted eight days ago."

Mildred nodded to show she understood, though couldn't help but be a little peeved the woman would call her _Gloria_ even though she was well aware her patient had – until less than a quarter hour earlier, in fact – believed her name to be _Mildred_ and Mildred _alone_.

"I want to talk to you about your injuries, and the accident. Is that all right with you?"

"Sure, fire away."

"Okay then," Dr. Fell stated, seeming to fall deep into with-a-patient mode. "You were admitted after the vehicle you and your parents were traveling in came off the road on Wickery Bridge. The vehicle entered the water and you subsequently lost consciousness after being deprived of oxygen for several minutes." Yes, Mildred knew all that – it happened to Elena not long before the first episode of the show. "We were worried about how that might have affected your brain function, though what I've seen here today shows that you're operating on what can be considered normal levels..."

The woman looked down at John in confirmation, and he nodded. "Beyond normal, I'd say," he assessed, then asked Mildred, "When did you finally start taking an interest in family history? Actually remembering when our town was founded, the Battle of White Oak Creek?"

"Three hundred and forty-six military casualties, twenty-seven civilians," she blurted before her brain could catch up with her mouth. Damn – that was _so_ Lucy's fault. She really needed to stymie _that_ habit.

John's brows rose into his hairline, and an appraising glint entered his eyes.

_Oh…_ She shouldn't know anything about any 'civilian' casualties – that was Council stuff Elena wouldn't know anything about, even if she studied hard. Urgh, Mildred was dumping herself in the doggy doodoo now, wasn't she? She hoped it could just be passed off as something she'd heard once and remembered for some reason – which, technically, was _true_ – rather than cluing John and Dr. Fell into the fact she knew about the town's vampire summer camp.

"Well, for somebody who hates history so much, you're quite the little fact-machine," John laughed, though there was an edge to it Mildred found unsettling.

So, Elena Gilbert hated history? On the job for about an hour, and Mildred was already getting her _all wrong_. What was Elena like on the show? Writing in that diary of hers – though it seemed to mysteriously disappear after season one – and going to high-society parties...and borderline-necrophilia – if you squinted, anyway… Though she supposed that didn't actually become a 'hobby' until she started going with Stefan, so it wasn't relevant right now.

All Mildred could really do was play it off as an accident thing.

"I, uh, don't know. You asked and I just remembered – I'm sure we talked about it in school..."

That didn't seem to satisfy John. "What about the Gilbert Journals, have read them?"

Translation: Do you know about the vampires?

Mildred shrugged, deciding to hedge her bets. "I've flicked through them. Jonathan Gilbert was a bit crazy, wasn't he?"

Starting off a new conversation, with someone else the central focus, was a good way to deflect attention off of her and onto a less dangerous path.

John laughed, a contrived sort of sound that didn't fully match up with the sharpness of his gaze. "That he was – crazy and brilliant. He wrote short stories, a lot of them made it into his journals amongst the entries, so to an outsider they look a little nuts. He was a very good writer, though."

_And vampire hunter_ went without saying.

"Anyway, I need to know what you recall of the accident, and the events leading up to it," Dr. Fell requested, not looking at all shifty.

Fell was one of the Founding Families on the Vampire Diaries, right? So Merida Fell would be a Council member – or at least she knew what was going on in the town. She was fishing.

Deciding to be awkward – because there was no way Mildred was going to be letting two possible Council members know that just before the accident she'd been sucking face with an honest-to-God _blood_ sucking dude – she evaded the question.

"Shouldn't I be talking to the police about this? I mean, not that there's much to say, but I didn't think it was the hospital's area?"

Pretend to be naive. That went well enough with Elena's character: Naive and sweet, tenacious and kind. It wouldn't do for Mildred to be a hundred percent her usual self and have everyone around her think she'd had some kind of freaky personality-transplant.

And God – she was treating _this_ as if it were her proper life, now…as if she wouldn't be going home anytime soon.

She couldn't even face the idea that might be true. No. This was just a _very_ vivid dream...that she couldn't wake up from...even after apparently having been in it for like a week.

"It would help me better understand your injuries if I knew exactly what happened. And seeing as the other witnesses aren't in any condition to tell me-" Dead, she meant, or too young to be a reliable source of information. Dr. Fell didn't have a very good beside-manner, she was far too blunt. "-I have to ask you. I _am_ sorry, but it's important."

Fine. Mildred would bite.

"Mom and Dad came to pick me up from the party. I was in the backseat, and Dad was driving," she recounted flatly. "We were arguing. Mom was telling me off for stringing Matt along..." And making-out with Tall, Dark and Dead. "I sort of zoned-out. Mags was asleep in the back with me, it got quite windy, it was raining… I didn't even notice where we were till the car lifted up like it was caught by a gust. Then we went past the guardrail, into the river.

"I- I couldn't get out," she went on clinically, forcibly staving off a repeat of the sense-memory moment from earlier. "Mags was screaming, crying, my seatbelt was stuck and the car was filling up fast. Mom was... _knocked out_. I managed to get Mags out the kiddy-seat, held onto her – the doors were stuck, so I couldn't get her out the car. I remember taking a breath before water covered my head, thinking it was all a bad dream… Then..."

Again, an Emmy – an Oscar even, 'cause this was big money stuff. Not many actors stuck in falling down theaters in the Boston equivalent of off-off-Broadway had the ability to come out of a car accident/find themselves trapped in a dream and _still_ give a convincing performance. She was so wasted in that knock-off Orpheum's approximation of Oklahoma. This situation might be all kinds of fucked-up – what if her real-life was a dream, and _this_ was reality? Fuck, what if she _was_ insane? – but it was oddly refreshing to have a new part to play; she'd been stuck as Ado Annie for the last nine months.

"Yes?" John prompted forcefully when it became clear she wasn't going to say anything else, leaning closer as if captivated by her tale. "Then what? How did you get out the car?"

"I don't know. I just kept wishing I was somewhere else, that I could wake up from the nightmare, then we were _moving_. Like, we were being dragged by the current somehow… Then I blacked out. That's it. There's nothing else till I woke up."

"The first time?"

Mystified, Mildred wondered, "The first time _what_?"

Elaborating, Dr. Fell queried, "Do you remember the first time you woke up?"

Mildred shook her head, wincing as she realized it was still slightly sore. "I only remember being awake now. Feels like I've been out a month."

"Well, eight days is a long time to be napping, Gloria," Dr. Fell commented lightly. "You're a very lucky young lady. Not many people could survive the sort of accident you had, much less fully capable of returning to everyday life without further assistance. You've got a guardian angel looking out for you."

Or a vengeful vampire. It was Stefan who pulled Elena out the car on the show. Mildred didn't know about Elena's father – she thought on TV he hadn't gotten out at all, but obviously he _had_ but hadn't survived, succumbing to his injuries once at the hospital.

Not knowing where to go from here, still disoriented by the unnatural level of detail in this dream-like experience, Mildred decided to ask the obvious question:

"Can I go home?"

John glanced up at Dr. Fell, looking for her professional opinion.

The woman shrugged. "We've not got a good reason to keep you in. We'd like to run a few pre-release tests, though – keep you in overnight for obs now you're conscious. Get that catheter out – it must be uncomfortable. We just need to make sure there are no lingering...effects. You appear quite healthy, considering, but you've still only just gotten out a coma – it's probably best not to run before you can walk."

"Can- Can I see Mags now?" she requested uncertainly.

It was weird how much she needed to know the little girl was okay. Imaginary or not, nearly drowning with her had formed a 'sister'-sized ache in her chest.

"Tomorrow… She'll be there when you come home tomorrow," John promised.

That would have to be good enough.

Staying in the hospital all night meant hours of staring at a suspended, grayish ceiling, contemplating the unnaturalness of her present predicament.

Why couldn't she just wake up and go home? Her real parents must be worried by now – well, her _father_ at least – because it had been… What day was it when this dreams started? It must've been a Wednesday because the day before that she'd spent with Lucy, but she'd also had a show that night and was staying in the city. So it was eight days ago...which meant she'd missed going back home to Peterborough, something she did every Sunday like clockwork. Real-Dad must be going out his mind if she'd been missing for over a week! And that was only presuming time here and in the real-world matched minute for minute.

Dr. Fell left the room, though John stayed for a while longer. Mildred wasn't sure of the relationship Uncle John had with the Gilbert children, but it was a flattering level of care he took in plumping up her pillows and enquiring if he could get anything to make her hospital-bound evening less dull. She didn't know him well enough to pass any sort of judgment on his character, other than to acknowledge he seemed a little wily – that was probably on account of having a secret like 'vampires are real and the town's an all-you-can-eat-buffet' locked up in his head. She really couldn't remember much about him from the show; Mildred had never exactly been a big fan and tended to spend more time looking over new, unrelated scripts and messaging rather than actually paying any attention – which she was starting to regret now.

When he did leave – after agreeing that he or Jeremy would bring some books for her to choose from, and a journal and pen for notes – she sank back into the bed.

Though she wasn't in any great pain, she was extremely unsettled. Just what was going on here? Was she stuck here, in this strange place where the impossible seemed to be a living – for various definitions of _living_ – breathing thing? Whatever the reason for the unprecedented length of this dream, she was more than ready to wake up.

She'd always been content to drift with the current in pleasant dreams, only very rarely shifting things to more suit her current mood; she looked for adventure when life was particularly dull, love when she was at her most lonely, and something to safely take her anger out on when she was frustrated with Mr. Gibson (her company's production manager). All the same, no matter the atmosphere, she couldn't recall an instance of a dream being so lifelike or going on so long before. By all rights, she ought to be hanging from the ceiling screaming bloody murder right now, not calmly waiting for 'Uncle John' to bring her 'some things from home'. Even though she'd been asleep for what felt like an eternity, she couldn't muster enough energy to wade against the current – what was happening was happening, and right now no amount of fretting would change it.

When she leafed through the copies of _Jess of the d'Urbervilles_ and _a Hymn of Ice and Fire: for the Crows to Devour_ (the former of which was apparently one of 'her' favorites, and the latter of which had allegedly just come out and 'she' had been reading before the accident), Jeremy brought her later that evening, she couldn't help but feel completely lost all over again.

The source of the feeling wasn't simple to pinpoint. it was just...something wasn't _right_ in this place. Nothing was quite normal – even in so far as highly-intricate, interactive dreamscapes went. The paper in the notepad Jeremy brought was thick and cream, oddly expensive looking for what seemed like a run-of-the-mill Leuchtturn, and both the fountain and ballpoint pens were filled with ink of a very ruddy, rusty black-brown…

It was the little things, the details that were off. It was like suddenly finding yourself in an entirely different world – full on Fringe style – or waking up in a skip after a wild party and not knowing how you'd gotten there. There was just something about the way everything fit together well but also _not_...like the pieces fit perfectly but the picture was slightly different from the one on the box – jumbled up, distorted.

     This place was _wrong_.

Right then and there, Mildred decided she'd play along for as long as she had to, but she _would_ wake up eventually...no matter what it took.

 


	3. When In Stable Unreality...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Mary Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: Even outside of the real world, life goes on. People are people and stuff is stuff, and Mildred's just taking it as it comes.

 

 

 

 _june  
_ when in stable unreality...

 

 

 **True to their word,** the doctors released Mildred into the care of the Gilbert family – _her_ family for now, it would seem – the very next day. The trip to Elena's house was surreal in its normalcy. John drove, a sense of relief floating around him, and Jeremy sat in the back seat with her, grasping one of her hands tightly as if afraid she'd disappear if he let go for even a moment.

They passed convenience stores, parks, restaurants and boutiques; other than the fact she knew Mystic Falls was a made-up place, everything about the picturesque little town was pretty average. It was a very green place, but Peterborough was like that too – all deciduous forest which glowed in the fall, and nosy people milling about, knowing everything about everyone. Mystic Falls was actually significantly larger than she would've thought; the drive from the hospital to the house lead them through the town's heart, and out of it again down a long, spindly road bordered by big old colonial houses. It felt the journey was taking forever, even though rationally Mildred knew it was only because she'd never been here before.

The Gilberts lived only about ten minutes from the town-square by car; it was probably only two or three miles, allowing for traffic. There were a lot of other vehicles around, just as there had been many shoppers milling down the more retail-oriented main streets. The population was definitely larger than it had appeared on the show; or, at least, the population weren't – for the sake of plot and filming convenience – a bunch of shut-ins lurking on the sidelines like ghosts. She wondered if it followed that, in the same way on the show the inhabitants of Mystic Falls were more like mythical creatures – unless there was a party – than real people with real lives and issues, in this quasi-reality she was visiting there would be a greater authority presence in the town. If future events unwound the way they had in the show, that might either be a good thing or just extremely inconvenient.

The house was similar to the one on the show. It was large – far more so than her own parents' home – with a broad porch out front, and a grassy yard dotted with little yellow stars.

     Dandelions…

Why did that feel important?

There were country rose bushes in the formal flower beds, surrounded by sweet-smelling air. Clematis ran up trellis attached to one side of the building, and a large beech tree cast a shifting knot of shadows across half the property.

Mildred stared up at the house when she got out the car. There was a crow perched in the tree, watching her with sharp, beady eyes; she shivered involuntarily at the intelligence in them, a judder rolling down her spine. Putting the sensation out of mind, she wondered which of the windows belonged to Elena's bedroom – no... _her_ bedroom now… That was how she needed to think or she'd go crazy in no time. Craz _ier_ , anyway.

The crow flapped off with a nonsensical squawk, and Mildred ducked automatically as it went.

"Hey, you okay, Glore?" Jeremy asked concernedly from right beside her. She hadn't even noticed him getting out the car.

Shaking her head to clear it, she said, "Yeah – yeah, of course. It's just sort of weird..."

A shadow crossed his face. "Knowing Mom and Dad won't be in there? That they won't ever be here again?"

"Yeah. It feels...wrong."

 _Everything_ felt wrong – _was_ wrong.

She was a mostly-failing career actress stuck in a hyper-realistic hallucination of a TV show, forced to put her skills to use playing a character she knew almost nothing about. The fact was, inevitably someone close to Elena was going to notice something was off with her; Mildred could only be thankful people had a tendency to change after the sort of accident her character – because it wasn't _her_ , not really... _Mildred_ didn't drown – had been in. Also, Elena was only seventeen – an age at which it was a girl's prerogative to change day to day, week to week.

Despite its size, the house was homely inside. Mildred toed her shoes off at the front door, too used to her real-mother's rule of 'no shoes in the house' to break the habit. The wooden floors were smooth and slightly warm on her soles, as if there was underfloor heating, and there was a massive rug covering most of the floorspace in the living room, stretching right out under the sofas. The kitchen seemed to be at the back of the house, semi-concealed by a wall, and it could only be assumed the dining room was out-of-view on its right. There was a set of stairs opposite the front door, a stapled carpet running up their middle, which were edged by a banister that looked too low to really prevent a person falling.

Jenna was just visible slumped at a breakfast bar in the kitchen, nursing what _could_ be an average coffee but was probably more than a little Irish. The woman looked worn out – dark circles below her eyes and ratty hair – as if she hadn't slept since Jeremy left the hospital with her yesterday. She didn't move when John shut the door behind them, not seeming to have heard them come in.

Hoisting her record-bag over her shoulder, Mildred found herself at a loss over what to do now. She didn't know which room was hers, and she felt entirely like an intruder in someone else's home – awkwardly standing in the foyer, waiting for someone to tell her where she should put her coat and to take a seat.

In lieu of risking doing something inappropriate – something that would give her away as being not who they thought she was – Mildred asked her new family:

"Is– Is Mags here?"

Jeremy nodded, so she tentatively requested to see her 'sister'.

"Of course," John allowed knowingly, as if he'd expected that to be the first thing she'd want upon arriving. "Just give me a moment, okay?"

John went into the kitchen. She could hear the faint murmur of his conversation with Jenna. Elena's aunt seemed slow to respond, but whatever she _was_ saying must've been acceptable to John, because he returned – though not before pouring the woman a stronger drink than coffee, telling her, loudly enough for even Mildred to catch, to go get some sleep – looking grim.

"Magda's in her room. You can go see her right now if you want, but...you have to know this, Gloria..." He looked unsure of how to proceed – beside her Jeremy shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably but didn't step in to help the man. "She won't speak to any of us, she hasn't since the accident. She's eating, sleeping, playing – just not _speaking_ , okay? Doctor Faust – the other one, not the one you saw yesterday – believes it's shock, it might take a while for her to...recover, to be like herself again."

Nodding her understanding, not trusting herself to say anything – because _of course_ the little girl wasn't in much of a conversation mood after losing her parents, and nearly drowning in the arms of her 'sister' – Mildred climbed the stairs. At the top, there was a hallway branching left and right, and she wasn't sure which way to turn. Then the noise of some kind of electronic toy emitted from a door to the right, coming with a small accompanying sniffle – the girl's room must be in that direction.

Through the ajar door she glimpsed butter-yellow walls and the same antique floorboards as downstairs, although the small room was dotted with enough beanbags to serve and entire slumber party. Facing away from her on the bed, knelt there as she bent over some toy or another, was a small girl with strawberry-blond curls. She was wearing pajamas even though it was nearly two in the afternoon, and there was a half-eaten slice of toast and a mostly-empty cup of orange juice on the nightstand.

Rapping lightly on the door with her knuckles, Mildred called, "Hey sweetie, do you mind if I come in?"

Her sort-of-sister whipped around so fast she slipped off the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thump.

Mildred couldn't help it – she laughed as she stepped into the room, picking the girl up off the floor and settling her back on the covers. She instantly found herself with a pair of small arms wrapped about her middle.

Through the tears and tight embrace, Mildred successfully ascertained the girl – and she really needed to remember her name was Mags, or Magda even, as John said earlier – really was alive and well… Okay, if not _well_ then at least physically unharmed.

How had she survived? A child's lung capacity was certainly much smaller than that of an adult, and Mildred herself had passed out before making it out the water… And afterward, she'd been in a coma for a week. Magda obviously hadn't been unconscious for anywhere near as long; it seemed improbably she should come out of the accident so unscathed. Was it Stefan who pulled them both out the water? Did he give Elena's sister blood? He must've done, despite the obvious foolishness of giving a child who was close to death vampire blood – God only knows what sort of havoc a toddler mistakenly turned into a vampire could wreak! – in order to save her life. There was no other good explanation for how Magda was still of the living.

Unexpectedly, getting onto the bed and hoisting the child up onto her lap, rocking her gently, Mildred felt a burst of relief and affection. All thoughts of needing to wake-up were pushed to the side, buried beneath a wave of emotions; for some reason, she felt a genuine bond with Magda – almost as if she were her proper sister. With that came a crashing gratitude to Stefan Salvatore for saving the girl's life, despite any risk – of vampire-child carnage? – there may have been in doing so.

As with when she'd basically jumped Damon (and that wasn't good, now it looked like this was a dream that wasn't ending and was therefore effectively _real_ , because the vampire in question was going to be all over her for _that_ indiscretion), time lost it's meaning as she clutched the girl. No, her _sister_ – this girl was her sister. It wasn't particularly hard for Mildred's heart to acknowledge her as such, even if her head was more slow on the uptake. Eventually the tears dried up, though, and she lightly pushed on her sister's shoulders so she could get a good look at the girl's face.

There was a roundness to Magda's cheeks – damp and pink from crying – though there was the obvious line of high-cheekbones buried below their plumpness. She had amber-brown eyes the color of sunlight through fall leaves, and they were speckled with a darker brown that made her irises look like they had freckles. Her eyelashes were too fair to see properly, her brows the same, and she had pale skin with a smattering of _actual_ freckles.

Mildred hunted through Magda's features hungrily, trying to place them to those of the couple who were, in this place, her now-deceased parents. The fairness of the hair probably came from her sister's youth, and from their redheaded mother. While the freckles almost certainly came from Miranda's side too, Jeremy's eyes were much the same as Magda's and were likely the product of their father (given what she recalled of the man's coloring from the brief meeting circumstance afforded them) because, as far as she could remember from high school science lectures, brown eyes were a dominant trait.

It was only in examining her sister that she belatedly realized she didn't know what she _herself_ looked like. She might have know what Nina Dobrev – the woman who played Elena on TV – looked like, but just a glance at her own hands showed her own skin was shades paler by far than that of her fellow actress'. Did she look like herself, like the Mildred Hiscock who'd stared back at her from the mirror for the last quarter-century? (Albeit a younger version of herself here, seeing as, no matter how young people often took her for, there was no way Mildred could pass for _seventeen_.) It wasn't something she'd considered in the hospital – compared to her other current issues, appearance hadn't gotten a look in.

Reaching back to grasp the neat French-plait her hair had been in when she woke up yesterday (something her aunt had most likely done while she was out for the count), she peered down at the end of it. Her hair was honey-blond, not dissimilar from John's. Well, given how lustrous TV-Elena's dark hair was, it was obvious she didn't look like the character she was familiar with seeing on the show. Too, the smoothness of the locks was completely different – if not in color – from her frizzing, untameable hair as it was in the real-world, meaning she was also definitely not _herself_ here.

Taking a deep breath – knowing it wouldn't be helpful to have an identity crisis right now – Mildred wiped the last of the tears off her sister's face with the cuff of her blouse.

"Right," she said shakily, "how about we get you out your PJs and into some proper clothes, yeah? Then you can wash up and come get a snack with me?"

To Mildred's disappointment, Magda didn't respond verbally, but she did allow herself to be maneuvered into the closet; it was a space almost as large as the bedroom itself and seemed to house more toys than clothing. It took ten minutes to help her tiny sister pick out something to wear. The princessy dresses – which she suspected had previously been the girl's favorites – were out the question since she'd nearly died in one, and other things were rejected by Magda without obvious reason. Knowing this was a good chance to get a look at herself – so she at least had a self-image that wasn't a decade older and a world away – Mildred hoisted Magda up on her hip and carried her out the bathroom.

"Can you remind your silly sister which way the bathroom is? My memory's sand through a sieve – can't hold onto it! Can you help me out, sprout?"

Children were easy to get info out of usually, and Magda was no different in that respect. Though she still refused to use her words, the little girl pointed to a door right next to the room they'd just exited. Stepping into the bathroom, Mildred saw there was a door on their right which probably lead straight back into her sister's bedroom… Great, it looked like 'silly sister' had gone around the long way. There was a mirror, a frameless modern one with frosting at the edge like a tacky Christmas decoration.

Her own reflection almost made her gasp. Only years of training to keep emotions off her face unless she _intended_ for others to see them, and the fact Magda was staring at her unblinkingly, stopped the sound in her throat.

Popping her younger sister onto a little step-stool so she could reach the sink, Mildred devoured her face with ravenous eyes. Her skin was far paler than that of Elena on the show – it was obvious this girl didn't see much sun or, more likely, lived beneath a constant layer of sunscreen. There was nothing to her skin tone to suggest a Southern European heritage. Hadn't Catherine been from Bulgaria or something? As the vampiress' doppelganger, shouldn't _she_ herself look more...exotic?

With her blond hair pulled back into a plait, if she squinted she could sort of look like a very anemic, blond Nina Dobrev… It was hardly an exact resemblance: The planes of her cheeks made her face a bit too wide, her chin too prominent, her nose concave at the bridge and sweeping out in a smooth, short stroke to end in neither hook nor upturn. All in all, the effect was that of looking at the sibling – the very ill sibling, in this case – of someone familiar… Close but no cigar. Also, she had extremely narrow shoulders and a long neck, two things which gave the strange impression her head was just a tad too big for her body.

Her eyes weren't brown like Magda's and Jeremy's were, either. They were blue mostly – such a _vibrant_ shade it looked like somebody must've ramped their saturation in Photoshop – but nearer the pupil they washed out until they were basically a grayish white. Was it because of that doppelganger thing? Because Elena's character was supernatural herself – more than just being surrounded by that weirdness all the time – she had these scary, Demon Headmaster eyes? Whatever the reason for their glow, Mildred was forced to look away from the mirror, unsettled by her own piercing gaze.

Downstair Jenna had vacated the kitchen. Jeremy was sitting in the living room, staring absently out the window, while John was pottering around the kitchen island. Judging by the tall glasses of fresh, raspberry-colored smoothies, and the pulp coated juicer, the man had just finished decimating the household's fruit supplies. Rummaging in a low cupboard, he made a sound of victory as he came up with a skillet and a saucepan.

Turning around and spotting them, the man smiled. "Ah, little Mags, I see not even _you_ – adorable little monster – can resist our Gloria's charms!" Addressing Mildred directly, he said, "I'm making bacon, eggs and pancakes… That's still your – slightly disgusting, by the way – favorite, right?"

Bemused by his knowledge of this fact, she nodded. "Yeah, crispy bacon, syrup, egg yolk," she confirmed. "Nothing like it."

"Oh, there's something like it all right – a heart attack. Goodness knows how you can eat stuff like this and not end up a teenage poster for Supersizing Me."

"Just because _you're_ finding your belt a little tight in your _advanced_ age," she needled jokingly, "doesn't mean _I_ need to worry yet. I'm fit as a Mallee bull."

Well, she seemed to be, anyway. She was totally going to break her diet while here – she couldn't put on weight if it wasn't her real body.

"Ah, I'm wounded!" he exclaimed, waving a slightly-oily spatula around to emphasize his words. "You think I'm _fat_? Tell me, do these pants make my behind look big?"

She was amused when he turned around for her to judge, managing to wheeze out, "Nope, not at all," through her laughs.

Just then, Jeremy came over. "What're you guys doing?" he asked with a frown.

" _I_ am making Gloria's favorite – most deadly pancake a la John," her sort-of-uncle told him, some of the amusement dying back in his eyes. "Want some?"

Seeming blindsided by their behavior (probably because his parents had just died, and here his family was joking around and acting pretty much like nothing was wrong), Jeremy shrugged and gave a sullen, " _I guess_."

Securing Magda into the high-chair level with the kitchen island, Mildred tried to cheer the boy up. He'd been very kind to her at the hospital yesterday and, well...his parents _had_ just died. It was little wonder he wasn't showing much interest in normal family activities.

It was funny, but she found herself slipping seamlessly into life here, as if this was the way things had always been. She _knew_ this wasn't her life, that she was in a place which could surely only be conjured by her own imagination, but she could worry about _that_ later. These people needed her help – they needed their niece/sister to be strong and carry on with things as normal. Jenna was clearly struggling, Jeremy was moody as hell, Magda wouldn't talk to anyone, and John...well, John was doing his best but she could spot the strain behind his smiles.

Mildred really might be insane. She was treating dream-people as if they were real and had feelings. That was a matter to consider later, though, because she was too hungry for existential crises. _When trapped in Stable Unreality_ , she thought humorlessly, _you might as well ride with the Unrealitians_.

"How about we eat, then you and me play some computer games, yeah?" she suggested to Jeremy, sure she'd seen him display interest in such games on the show. Well, he'd shown interest in that and getting high, anyway, but she wasn't exactly in the mood to be going down that road.

He appeared to be taken aback. "You don't like my games – they're a waste of time, remember?"

"Well, perhaps I've gotten a bit of perspective lately," she returned, covering up her blunder with annoyance.

Oh how she _wished_ Elena's character had shown a bit more depth on the show. How was Mildred meant to play someone who didn't seem to have any interests, and had poor interpersonal relationships with almost everyone around her? She didn't like history, she didn't like games… She wasn't close enough with her siblings for them to think it normal she'd want to do something _they_ liked for a change, and even John seemed surprised at her current goal of lighthearted humor... Who _was_ this girl whose place she was taking? Apparently someone as shallow as a plugless sink, filled only by scarce drips from a leaky faucet.

While she blissfully chomped her way through a stack of buttery pancake and burned bacon, she thought about who Elena Gilbert had presented as.

She'd been too kind, always forgiving people even when they clearly didn't deserve it, and trying to sacrifice herself so they could live. She hadn't cared Stefan Salvatore was a vampire, or that his brother was one too; the girl had disliked Damon in early episodes not because of _what_ he was but _who_ he was. She had also shown she – illogically – couldn't put her super-tight morals aside even in life-or-death situations. She was a naif...a self-centered one, by all accounts, who would avoid people if they made her feel something she didn't like, and who put off making a choice between two brothers for so long because she couldn't take that one of them would probably hate her for breaking their hearts.

Thinking about it now in a way she'd never bothered before, Mildred wasn't sure she liked Elena's character at all. Perhaps that was why her subconscious had, she mused while she took a tentative sip of John's mystery smoothie, decided to mess things up a bit in this world. She _had_ always enjoyed shifting plots and playing what-if games (and Randall Monroe had nothing on her and Lucy at their most drunk, though perhaps his musings were less...air-headishly bovine), so it wouldn't be much of a surprise that she, in a coma-dream, would do such a thing on a grand scale.

For now, she was choosing to roll with the punches. It might not be the _right_ choice – and perhaps she should be going off the rails, tearing this place down to the bones to find a way home – but it was _hers_ and at least she'd made one. She would treat these people as they believed themselves to be: As her family...because right now they _were_.

She spent the afternoon with Magda sat between her knees in front of the couch, the little girl reclining against her as she watched Mildred and Jeremy battle in Wario Kart. It was a familiar activity from her youth – from before her social circle had dwindled away until Lucy was the only friend she saw with any kind of regularity. Also, it was one of the few computer games she was any good at; other driving games tended to blur in her eyes, their too-realistic graphics confusing her and making her miss corners.

To Jeremy's – well-cussed – horror, she didn't have that problem in this game. This point was emphasized as, at that very moment, she orange-shelled his kart off the bridge on Kong Mountain. Mildred tried very hard not to think about how closely that echoed the accident which claimed Miranda and Grayson's lives. Nobody else in the room seemed to have noticed, anyways.

"You're good at this!" Jeremy enthused twenty minutes later, taking another sip of the soda he'd been throwing back all day. She was pretty sure he was sugar-high. "You've been holding out on me," he whined.

"Cheese to go with that?" Mildred ribbed, tilting her head back to look at him upside-down.

"Speaking of cheese," a new voice said from somewhere behind them, "will macaroni _and_ be good with you guys for dinner.

Returning to grumpy as quickly as he'd cheered, Jeremy just grunted; Magda probably didn't even understand the question. With a sigh, Mildred pressed pause on her controller. Twisting to see her uncle's face fully, she saw how crestfallen he was by Jeremy's brush-off. She tried to give him a reassuring look – her brother's behavior had absolutely nothing to do with John himself, after all.

Pulling a disgusted face, Mildred told the man, "You know, I don't like pasta much… Makes me feel yucky. But if we've got a load of cheese I could help do hunter's chicken… And onion rings," she added, nudging Jeremy's leg with her elbow. He nodded grouchily, and she offered her uncle a bright smile.

"Okay, hunter's chicken it is," John agreed easily. "Do we actually _have_ any chicken?"

Frowning because she didn't know – couldn't _possibly_ know – she only shrugged as she stood, handing Magda over to Jeremy's care. "Uh, don't know – suppose we could always make some substitutes if we have to," she mused on her way to the refrigerator.

Inside there _was_ chicken – thighs – and cheese too. There was barbecue marinade in one of the cupboards when she searched, but she couldn't see any bacon. Recalling lunch, she wondered:

"Uncle John, did you use _all_ the bacon on that delicious heart attack this morning?"

"May have done."

She 'ahhed', bending down to see if there were frozen onion rings in the icebox, or she needed to slice some and mix up batter. "That might be an issue."

Then, shifting through the other stuff in the icebox – it was full of lollies, various pre-prepared vegetables and some kind of gateau, among other things – she found a packet of frozen bacon.

"Ah-ha, we're in luck! Might have to dunk it in hot water to unstick the rashers, but better than a kick in the face. Can you boil the kettle, or should I risk the microwave oven's defrost – slash _destroy_ – setting?"

It didn't go too badly, all things considered.

The bacon was unstuck, the cheese sliced, the chicken marinaded and shoved in the oven at a random temperature that would hopefully do the job right. Mildred sliced potatoes without bothering to remove the skins – due to laziness – though when she found a basket of near-expired sweet potatoes she _did_ take the skins off those and add them to the oven. Annoyingly, she was forced to prepare the onion rings by hand, and use some beer in the batter that resulted in a color/consistency that didn't look quite as appetizing as that of the batter her real-father usually made.

John mostly just watched her while she worked, making idle conversation with an – apparently permanent – odd look on his face. He enquired how she'd been doing in school, if she was enjoying her junior year, if she had succeeded in getting onto the cheerleading squad like she'd once mentioned wanting to? Mildred could only blunder through the answers, bullshitting her uncle about in circles to conceal the fact she had no idea what he was going on about.

"I didn't know you cooked," he eventually ventured. "Did my brother teach you? Miranda could burn water, so we both know it wasn't her."

"Come on, it's not rocket science," she said, peering through the oven door to check nothing had caught fire yet. "Sometimes a door is just a door, or a Rubik's cube of diabolical proportions, or quantum mechanics..." She trailed off, brain continuing to spew out quotes about rocket science.

She wondered if she needed to put the cheese on the chicken yet…

"What's a roobix cube? Is that a geometry thing?"

Befuddled, before Mildred could decide how best to respond to such a bizarre question, Jenna entered the kitchen.

"Okay, what's going on in here?" she asked through a yawn. "Hmm...I smell barbecue," she commented. "And what's this about diabolical rubises cubes– no, _ruby_ cubes– No, uh, ruby cubei… Urgh, I've not been up long enough to pluralize a word like that." The woman got herself a tea-cloth of ice from the dispenser, pressing it to her forehead.

"Headache?" John asked knowingly.

"Like I was hit by a semi," her aunt replied vacantly. "You cooking us dinner? Last time you cooked for me was...what, I was seventeen and you forgot to mention when you said _hot_ , you meant so spicy steam'd come out my ears!"

John chuckled, responding, "Not my fault you can't appreciate good jerk chicken."

"I just think _you're_ a jerk."

"No odds to me – besides, _I'm_ not cooking this one." He nodded his head toward Mildred.

Frowning, Jenna said incredulously, " _You? You're_ cooking?" When Mildred answered affirmatively, a horrified expression bloomed across the woman's face. "Oh _hell no_! Not after last time, there's _no way_ I'm eating your cooking again, hangover or no hangover!"

Her aunt turned to John for his opinion; he just shrugged and said to the air at large, "You _have_ got a point there… Gloria, your track record is...questionable at best."

"Such faith in me," Mildred groused. "Some family you guys are..."

Deciding it _was_ in fact time to put the cheese on, she retrieved the chicken-dish out the oven more violently than strictly necessary, muttering about her pseudo-aunt's 'failure to encourage her in her pursuits' under her breath all the while.

 

 

 **It was dark outside by the time Mildred got to examine 'her' room.** It was on the other side of the house from Magda's and the master bedroom, and was connected to another room – one that screamed teenage-boy so loudly it could only be Jeremy's – by the shared bathroom between them. The walls were painted a blushing shade of pink that made her nauseated, and there was a thick, fluffy cream rug sticking out from under the bed.

The first order of the day – well, night – was to find Gloria Gilbert's journal. Mildred was aware the character kept one, though she wasn't entirely certain if she'd always done so or if it was a method of coping with her feelings after the accident. She could only hope for the former.

After ten minutes searching at the back of drawers, in boxes in the closet, and even behind the big mirror on one wall and in an inbuilt storage-box serving as a window seat/junk graveyard, all she had found was a _lot_ of books and some albums which all looked to be on _mini_ disc.

Sifting through the haul, she found novels titled _the Portrait of Dorian Gray; Beneath the Dome; the Clashing of Kinds; Saphira, Ingo_ and _the Tidal Knot; Gatsby the Great; the Flight of Caitriona_ alongside _on Warfare and Peacetime; Alia aus Wunderland; Jayne Eyre_ and _the House on Wuthering Hill._

It was all very...disturbing. She recognized most these titles to some degree, but...well, her imagination had obviously messed things up a bit in the transition – perhaps because of the attention she'd placed on the _drowning_ situation at the time – from real-life to fantasy-world.

When she noticed the nonfiction books _Life of Birds: the Mauritian Dodo_ (the cover of which was a color photograph of a group of wild dodos foraging) and _Twenty-One States_ (bound in a sepia map of the southeastern US), she gave up worrying about it.

Almost all the minidisc albums were unfamiliar both in artist and title, bar a few bearing the names _David Bowie, John Lennon, Joan Mitchell_ or _Tchaikovsky_ on their spines.

Searching through all the drawers of the desk, Mildred stuttered in her task when she noticed something odd amongst the many photographs pinned around the edges of the mirror above. There, in the top right corner, was a photo of Gloria standing next to a girl who looked pretty much identical to her – though perhaps she was slightly paler. She would think the second girl in the photo was Catherine or something, if it weren't for the fact both girls were clearly far too young for either of them to be the ancient vampiress.

Mildred frowned, peering closer at the photo. It was taken at some forest lake – in the background a very young Jeremy splashed around in the water. The similar girls had their arms wrapped around one another's waists, and the spaghetti-strap dresses they wore were about the only way of telling them apart; they both had fair hair – one's slightly darker than the other – intense, starburst-blue eyes and insouciant smiles. Though one of them _was_ sunburned across the top of her cheeks...like she'd forgotten to apply lotion to just that part of her face. Smoke from a barbecue twisted along the corner of the frame and water sparkled, making the whole scene's summer heat almost tangible.

Checking out the other photographs, she found the mystery-girl was in a lot of them. Some of them must've been taken near to the time of the one at the lake because one of the otherwise-indistinguishable girls was still sporting sunburn-pink cheekbones. Lots of the pictures involved a pleased looking blond boy surrounded by four girls his own age: A tall brunette with brown eyes, an elfin redhead whose hazel eyes almost glowed, and Gloria and her lookalike (though which of them was which was hard to say). It was very strange. She assumed the attractive, blue-eyed boy must be Matt, but she wasn't really sure who all the girls were.

Putting the unknown blond girl out of mind, she returned to her mission of diary-hunting. Eventually, she came across the damned journal hidden unimaginatively under the character's pillow. Mildred dived into the butterfly-embossed book with gusto, finding the paper as rich as that of the notepad Jeremy had brought her last night, and words of a dark sorrel brown. She was disheartened to discover the diary didn't go back further than January – there must be a new one for each year.

_January 2, 2006_

_Dear Diary,_

_Sorry I couldn't keep my tradition of beginning a new_  
_journal on the first day of the year. Matt took me to the_  
_celebration at the Lockwoods, and we managed to sneak_  
_quite a lot of wine. The adults were so drunk they either_  
_didn't care we were too, or they just didn't notice. The_  
_party was a lot of fun, but my headache is terrible and  
_ _my stomach sort of like I decided to eat seaweed._

 _I don't know how to explain it, but I have the oddest_  
_feeling this year's going to be even worse than last year_  
_– even though I'm not sure how it can be. A feeling this  
_ _year is the year to end all years._

 _Bonnie says I'm being over dramatic – she must be right,_  
_because only crazy people get crushed beneath a sense of_  
_impending doom, right? You don't think I'm crazy, do you_  
_Diary? It's not like I think the world's going to end or_  
_anything… I just feel itchy in my skin, like I'm waiting for  
_ _the second shot to hit._

_I'm being stupid._

_This year's going to be great – I'm finally going to beat_  
_Caroline at tryouts, and Dad's going to put the good word_  
_in for me at the hospital so I can get one of the summer_  
_shadow internships… I know he wants me to do medicine,_  
_but I'm not really sure I want to. It's not like I don't want_  
_to help people, or anything like that, because I do – it's_  
_more that I'm not interested in a life of silly hours, very_  
_words relating to drugs and conditions I want nothing to_  
_do with, and watching more people die. It's horrible to see_  
_somebody you love waste away and not be able to do_  
_anything about it… I don't think I could separate patient  
_ _from friend how he does._

_But…_

_I'm not good at art like Jeremy and Mom, either. Keir had_  
_her writing, and even Mags has her singing and dancing_  
_thing, and she's only two! Govec and algebra are the only_  
_classes I'm really good in, and I think everyone would die of_  
_boredom at dinner parties if I end up an accountant or  
_ _stockbroker or something…_

 _I guess I've always been the bad daughter. Matt's got_  
_everything planned out – I suppose with his dad gone and_  
_his mother absentee most the time, he's had to grow up fast,_  
_work out what he wants. How do you tell people who know  
_ _exactly who they are that you don't know what you want?_

 _Something to worry about tomorrow… If I even make it to  
_ _tomorrow._

 _I don't know why I wrote that. Of course I'll make it to_  
_tomorrow. Nothing bad's going to happen… I've just got to  
_ _keep telling myself that and perhaps this feeling will go away._

 _Today – well, yesterday, but we'll pretend today, right? –  
_ _is the day for resolutions. Mine are:_

 _One) I will decide what I want to do when I leave school,  
_ _and actually lay the groundwork to achieve it._

This girl was seventeen? Who knew what they wanted to do with their lives at that age, then actually stuck to it? Well, Mildred had – she'd wanted to act for almost as long as she could remember, but that was only because she'd eventually accepted she'd never have the balance for ballet. That she _did_ go on to become an actress didn't mean much, because at seventeen she'd wanted to be a _successful_ one, not in some trashy production she only did because if she didn't it would feel like she wasn't trying properly.

 _Two) I will tell Matt I'm not sure I want to go to the same_  
_college as him, get married, then start popping out_  
_mini-Honeycuts. And I'll try not to break his heart in  
_ _the_ _process._

Had Elena – or Gloria, as she seemed to be called here – done that yet? No, she couldn't have done because her mother had a go at Mildred for making-out with Damon without having broken up with Matt. Great, five months since the character made this resolution, and she _still_ hasn't gotten around to it… Which left Mildred with the dubious honor of dumping Matt.

 _Three) I will try to be kinder with Caroline. It's got to be tough,_  
_what with her dad coming out the closet and running  
                      off to Virginia Beach with some guy. It's_ _not really her  
                      fault she's been such a bitch lately. And not everything's  
                      a competition _ _with her_ – _I already know I'll always win,  
                      so what's the point in _ _rubbing it in?_

That was interesting… Thinking about it, hadn't Caroline's father known about vampires just like her sheriff mother? Forbes was a Founding Family and on the Council, but which of her parents was actually the Forbes? They both knew about the supernatural, so it wasn't immediately clear. Then again, both Elena's parents knew about the vampires too, and they couldn't _both_ be Gilberts by birth – perhaps Council members just had blanket permission to let spouses into the loop?

 _Four) I will remember to return things people borrow me._ _Like_  
                    Mary's phonendoscope for my last Hallows _costume…  
                    And that Greenwich md of Matts – it's_ _still in the player._

That would be a tall order, seeing as Mildred had no idea which things were borrowed and which ones belonged to the previous owner of this body.

_Five) I will stop failing to keep my resolutions._

The last made her snort. If she found it hard to relate to the girl whose life she'd taken over, she didn't have any trouble empathizing with the sentiment of 'must do better at doing better'. It was a thing she herself had a longtime problem with – Mildred considered herself to be the mortal embodiment of the Great Procrastinator.

Flicking forward in the journal a bit, she only stopped to fully read entries which had key words in them like _cheerleading, Bonnie, Caroline_ , or things which seemed to be about her siblings. Even with the diary, making heads or tails of the girl's complex social life was difficult, therefore probably something Mildred would have to learn on the job.

Having a sudden idea, she tossed the journal aside and got off the bed, turning on the laptop sitting on the desk across the room. It booted, saying it was running something called 'Panes Professional', an operating system that looked very much like Windows XP. (If Lucy were here then the tech-elitist woman would be having conniptions right now.) Reaching the blue login page, which had to account names – Gloria and, surprisingly, Maggy – Mildred clicked on 'her' name.

It was password protected.

Of _course_ it was. Who didn't have a password even in their own house?

Typing keyboard-vomit, she hit enter. It failed to log-in – as expected – but now Gloria's password hint came up.

_'Something...'_

Oh, well, that was fucking helpful wasn't it! Why couldn't the hint have been something vaguely useful? Like a riddle, or part of a quote, or just something not _something_? Anything she might've had a hope at working out would have been better. 'Something' wasn't exactly a lot to go on; in fact, it was probably a dud clue to piss off anyone trying to log into the computer without permission.

Deflated, Mildred stomped into the closet to find something to change into. All Gloria's nightwear turned out to be shorts and tank tops, so, resigned to be stuck in a plaid-pink set, she shut off the main light and settled down to sleep. Perhaps some spark of genius would strike her in the night, and she'd be able to get into her predecessor's – yes, that was a good word to describe what Elena/Gloria Gilbert was: her _predecessor_ – files tomorrow.

 


	4. Keeping Up Appearances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand changes to history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world; to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life... She's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Mary Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: Mildred tries to get on with life, contemplates the many possibilities of her situation, and doesn't know her high school locker combo...but that's okay, because she doesn't know her 'boyfriend' either.

 

 

 

 _june_  
keeping up appearances

 

 

 **Three days later it was Sunday,** and she was no closer to working out what her predecessor's account password could be. Despite this inability to look back through Gloria's old Facebook posts and whatnot, or check what sort of sites she visited frequently, Mildred had settled into life on this strange plane of existence quite well for the most part. Certainly more easily and fluidly than could reasonably be expected for someone who'd just had their entire reality reordered.

She learned the Gilbert parents' funeral had, in fact, gone ahead before she'd woken and returned from the hospital. Though she had to pretend to be upset upon hearing this news, she was secretly quite relieved; it would've been tricky to fake the sheer level of sadness required to make people believe she was the normal Gloria Gilbert – even while still reeling from a drastic shift in her reality – and being required to interact with a ton of mourners she ought to know the names of but had never actually met in her life.

It was mildly surprising none of Gloria's friends had contacted her in the going-on five days she'd been awake. Of course, she wasn't sure where 'her' cell phone was, and couldn't log-in on the laptop, so it was entirely possible they _had_ reached out to her and she was merely unaware of this. Still, their silence was actually hurtful, though for the life of her Mildred couldn't work out why – it wasn't as if she _knew_ or _cared_ about the people Gloria considered friends, so there wasn't a good reason why their ignoral should wound her. It was a feeling she chose not to dwell on.

Living someone else's life could be as frustrating as it was confusing. Trying to locate everyday objects such as her phone and mp3 player – and even her cosmetics – was unreasonably difficult. Thus far she found herself with the impression Gloria was a weirdo with no phone, who set ridiculously overcomplicated, unguessable passwords, and kept a closet chock full of garments _Mildred_ had no desire to be seen dead in. Judging by their tastes in décor and clothing, not to mention the lingering air of uptightness around everything Gloria wrote in her diaries, she and her predecessor were very different people.

This concept of difference was continually reinforced by the way her family kept responding in peculiar ways when she said certain things: Jenna was 'amazed' by how well she was functioning even considering her parents' deaths, Jeremy was constantly surprised she wanted to do things with him, and Uncle John kept looking at her as if he was expecting her to reject his input and/or company any second. Magda, of course, didn't seem to have noticed anything had changed with Gloria – although she _was_ very clingy and wouldn't let anyone else play with her unless Mildred played too.

All these things meant she probably wasn't a very convincing Gloria Gilbert, but, seeing as she had no true idea of what the girl was _supposed_ to be like, this wasn't entirely surprising. The fact was, for all her ability to pretend to be someone else, Mildred was used to trying to make the character _her own_ , and a bit stumped by the challenge of trying to play the role of a well-established, _real_ person while in close contact with said person's family. It was tricky and she was sure she would be called out on her duplicity in the end.

Beyond the fact she missed her parents and Lucy terribly – hell, at this point she even missed Mr. Gibson a bit – Mildred's main annoyance with this place was her wardrobe options. If she focused on this issue then she didn't have to consider how it was she was going to get home; as far as she could tell, there was no actual way to do so. If movies, TV etc. were to be believed – and perhaps they should be in this place, given the circumstances – then the only way to wake up from a dream-world was to die… Somehow that didn't sit well with her – she had more self-preservation than that.

So yeah, the uninspiring clothing in the closet was totally serious and important, and it really needed to be fixed as soon as possible.

While Gloria seemed to favor skin-tight jeans and blouses, she herself had always felt awkward and uncomfortable in pants of any kind. For Mildred, blouses had always been out the question: Her real-life physique paired with a shirt tended to result in her contracting either chronic gaposis up top, or being left with baggy frumpiness around her middle – neither option being cute or feminine in the least. As a result of this, she preferred dresses. Unfortunately, in this department all the choices her predecessor had were either long, clingy and best suited to high-society functions – surprise surprise, considering how many parties seemed to be held in Mystic Falls on the show – or were too barely-there to be considered appropriate, and were probably meant to be worn with shorts on roasting summer days. The options for day-to-day, more casual dresses were precisely nil, and the girl didn't have many skirts either.

She didn't know what Gloria/Elena had been like before the accident but, apparently, she'd been at least somewhat something of a tomboy, despite her pink bedroom walls. That was fine by Mildred, seeing as she too had never been shy about running around outside with boys when she was a kid, but not being able to find any clothes she could be comfortable in was an issue. It was one thing to fill your days with activities that had the potential to get you dirty – if that was the reasoning behind her predecessor's clothing purchases – and another thing entirely to not realize clothing could be hard-wearing without restricting leg movement. Mildred supposed it was the actress – and sometimes-dancer – in her who felt this way.

So now she was perched carefully on a stool at the breakfast bar, idly ruminating over yesterday's crossword whilst trying to ignore the fact she was squeezed into some painted-on jeans that felt like they were trying to consume her thighs. Jenna was attempting to engage Jeremy in conversation – which the boy mainly resisted, apart from a few well-concealed smiles now and then – while Magda threw croutons at her. It was a nice thing to watch, the dynamic between this group of people, never having had siblings of her own and no aunts and uncles to speak of. Mildred found herself enjoying having 'family' around, and in the few short days she'd been here they'd left a mark on her heart. She would miss them when she left.

Of course, this affection did nothing to alleviate the boredom. She _had_ been stuck in the hospital a week – even if she was asleep for most of it – and now had spent the past few days effectively on house-arrest.

She'd passed the time re-reading some of the familiar/unfamiliar books in Gloria's room, trying to get to grips with the subtle differences in character and setting the had from the ones she'd studied when she was at school; some of the novels, like _the House on Wuthering Hill_ , were very similar to what she recalled of their real-world counterparts, but _on Warfare and Peacetime_ was unrecognizable from the Tolstoy work and hadn't even been written by the same author...or in the same century, according to the publishing information at the front.

The point was – with unreality having become the norm, and her having pretty much accepted it wasn't going to go away anytime soon – she itched to go out and explore this fantasy-world she was in. The scent of adventure was calling her, and all that jazz.

Her family didn't seem to think it was a good idea. The fact Jenna kept bringing it up every five minutes proved this.

"Are you still thinking you want to go back to school tomorrow?" Jenna asked in an offhand manner, right on cue. The woman casually wiped soup off her arm with a dishcloth. !Because, you know, if you want to take another week off, I don't think anyone would begrudge you. It's almost the end of the semester – is there even any point in going back for a couple of weeks?"

Mildred sighed and gave the same argument she always did when this topic was broached – which seemed to be about fifty times a day. "I want to go because I can't just sit around here moping. That's not what they would've wanted – I need to get on with stuff, I need to be _doing_ something."

"I know that's what you think now, and you've been...well, freakishly great so far, considering, but I don't want you to get there and have it all crash down on you," she said sensibly, in a soft voice Mildred suspected was more prone to joking than serious conversation.

Unfortunately for Jenna, any level of reason to her words was destroyed by the slight condensation – enough to ruffle anyone's feathers. This woman was barely _Mildred's_ real-world age for goodness sake! She wasn't just going to let Jenna boss about her life or speak to her like this!

"You know, it's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just..." feeling a quote coming on, Mildred allowed herself a secret smile and finished, "I _don't_ love them."

Okay, so perhaps a bit mean, but she was getting pretty annoyed at Jenna's continual attempts to make her change her mind about going to school. It's not like she _wanted_ to go back to high school – God, the _first_ time had been agony enough – but she wanted out of this house. School was the easiest, least refusable way for her to do it; her guardians could hardly deny her an education, could they?

"Look – I'm not _angry_ with you," she placated – because the woman looked put out and Mildred wasn't fond of uncomfortable living situations – changing tack effortlessly, "but we're all going through this together, and you need to let me do what I need to do. Our lives've been ripped apart here, and I need some sense of normalcy… School, friends – that's what's normal to me, okay?"

Jenna's eyes narrowed. "It's only been two weeks," she snapped. "I don't think it's a good idea!"

John came up behind Mildred, putting his hands on her shoulders and peering down at the half-finished crossword puzzle she was slowly filling in. "Two down's 'accountability'," he pointed out helpfully, tracing the clue _'1974 act meant to prevent this being denied, 14'_ with a finger.

Seeming frustrated by the way her brother-in-law – sort of – was snubbing her, Jenna stormed over the sink to fill Magda a fresh tumbler of water. Mildred _felt_ Uncle John's chuckle more than heard it, and smiled up at him conspiratorially; it was odd, his eyes were almost exactly the same as this body's when he was amused, right down to their shape and hue.

Continuing to scan her puzzle, he read, " _'Mythical storm flown by puppeteers'_ – eleven letters, eighteen across. That's 'thunderbird'."

Mildred dutifully moved to fill the answer in. "You're good at these," she noted with a small smile.

It was funny how something infinitesimal like that could ground her to this place but...well, she'd bever met anyone else who liked crosswords before, besides her real-life father; _he_ liked the crazy cryptic ones that made her eyes spin and her head thump like she was oxygen deprived – she knew what that felt like and the comparison was apt.

"Ah, too many late nights at the airport, I'm afraid," John chortled. "Only good reading material between the door and the gates also happens to contain a worrying number of old-people puzzles. When you've got a five hour flight, and the in-flight movie's a toss up between Gronks, the Secret Life of Bats, and Towers of Gold – for the thousandth time – you find new hobbies."

"I think it's good – I like these puzzles," she stated firmly, not letting her uncle second-guess telling her how 'sad' he was. "It's like a quiz for people with brains."

"Don't let your aunt hear you saying that – you know how much she loves Price it Right!"

Mildred's lips curled in amusement, and a huffing laugh escaped her. "I _hate_ that show! I prefer Poin…!"

She trailed off, suddenly not sure the show in question was yet in existence – or if it ever would be in this non-place, considering some of the discrepancies between it and reality which she'd already cataloged.

"You prefer what?"

 _Pointless_ she had been going to say, because Lucy _adored_ that show. She didn't think it existed back in 2006, though.

She covered up her blunder by venturing, "Uh... _nothing_. I think I just had a really great idea for a quiz show..."

Sometimes when her dad came to visit her in the city, he and her friend would get together and try to outdo the teams on-screen, shouting answers at the TV set as if the people on the quiz could hear them. They loved that BBC show because the aim of the game wasn't only to give a _correct_ answer, but also one which was obscure as possible; this was something that appealed to both her best-friend's and father's love of rare, mostly-useless trivia.

Thinking about it, if her mind really _had_ deposited her ten years in the past, there were so many things she could steal from the future and take credit for. If it wasn't an already a thing – which she couldn't quite recall – would it be morally wrong to pitch _the Big Bang Theory_ or _Fargo_ to a network? Or to kill Stephanie Meyer before the woman could pollute the world with any more of her trashy books? (If Mildred did that last then she'd also be saving everyone from five very painful movies with badly-acted protagonists.) Or she could go out with foreknowledge of what casters were looking for, and use it to get a part in something like...well, not _the Vampire Diaries_ – because she was already in that one – but _Supernatural_ or _Doctor Who_ , or perhaps even a big movie she _knew_ was going to be successful?

The possibilities seemed endless, like she was in a paradise. For the first time since this had all started, she found herself enthused to be in an alternate-reality of sorts. She could actually have an _awesome_ acting career here because she had all the know-how and wouldn't be considered 'a bit old for a breakout part' anymore. She would no longer be subjected to living as a barely-more-successful-than-Penny – she could form connections young and go get some of the incredible parts she just knew were waiting for her!

Never mind that none of this was real. She was young again and the whole world was waiting for her.

"...oria? Gloria, hey?"

A hand crossed her vision, interrupting her dreams. Oops, looked like she spaced out – she hoped she wasn't drooling or anything.

"Uh, sorry, what did you say, Uncle John?" she asked a bit sheepishly.

"I asked what your idea for a new show was?"

Feeling a bit drunk with the idea she could have the life she'd always wanted in this strange place, she laughed and began to explain the concept of _Pointless_ : Ask a studio-audience of precisely a hundred people a question, then have them list as many answers to that question as possible within a set amount of time; afterward have two-player teams offer up an answer that was correct but hadn't been given by many of the canvased answerers. Sort of like a reverse _Family Fortunes_.

John seemed to find her excitement funny when she added that money should be put on top of the jackpot every time a player managed to give a correct answer no one else had thought of.

Mildred should totally market this. She'd suffered through enough evenings of Lucy wailing at the TV when someone gave a particularly stupid answer, or her father shouting 'Burundi you idiots!', to have earned the right to at least make a bit of dough off it. Not to mention all the useless trivia she'd picked up in this way – what if those pointless facts had pushed important script lines out her head or something! She only had so much space up there, after all. She'd often made herself scarce when Lucy and her dad played but, all the same, she was sure it didn't exist yet.

"We could make a bomb," she announced giddily, high on the prospects knowing the future offered.

Even Jeremy had wandered over to find out what all the fuss was about, and he was giving her a blinding grin for a moment. The lightening of her brother's terminally depressing mood made this conversation worth it, even if nothing came of it in the long run.

"Perhaps you should tell Grandpa about it when we go see him?" Jeremy suggested quietly, looking an odd combination of entertained and miserable.

John nodded vigorously. Though it was a little funny how much the Gilberts seemed to like quiz shows and 'her' idea, Mildred felt warm inside. Nobody but Lucy ever willingly listened to her rambling on about ideas for stage-shows and gameshows usually – certainly not any producer she'd ever met and not her family either. It was different to have people exhibit interest in what she was saying, and showing support for her ideas...even if it was an idea stolen from the real-world.

Right at that moment, for the first time she could recall in...in a lifetime, basically, _everything_ felt great.

     Then Jenna existed…

"Since when've you had an interest in the entertainment sector?" the woman asked, straight after suggesting they order-in dinner rather than risking Mildred's cooking again. "I thought you wanted to be a doctor, like your dad?"

Abraded by the woman's constant needling, Mildred shrugged nonchalantly and tried to keep cool. "I don't think I'd like that," she admitted, knowing even the _real_ Gloria hadn't wanted such a career for herself. "Watching people die, having to tell their families, not being able to save everyone… I...I just think I'd rather do something else, something... _fun_."

"Like what?" John asked brightly, face open with genuine curiosity. "You've got your grandfather's gameshow bug, that much's clear – he'll be pleased to know."

Out of everyone in her new family – besides the sweetie Magda, who had Mildred wrapped around her little finger – Uncle John was by far her favorite person. He just... _connected_ with her on a level Jeremy and Jenna didn't seem able to. He really cared about her, too, which was refreshing after so many years of having a father that loved her to bits but didn't have much time on his hands, a best-friend who spoke at lightspeed without letting anyone get a word in edgeways, and a mother who regretted her very existence.

"I don't know… I like to sing sometimes," Mildred told them.

This time it was Jeremy who laughed at her. "We _know_ – the shower room's not soundproof. God knows, we _wish_ it was..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mildred snapped, offended.

"You've got the voice of an angel, I'm sure," he snarked. "Unfortunately it's covered up by all those yowling cats you like to shower with!"

This body couldn't _sing_?! No… _No_. No, that would be _awful_ …

John placated, "I'm sure it can't be _that_ bad. What else do you like?"

"Uh...dancing, acting perhaps – I've got a great memory for lines and stuff."

The man nodded thoughtfully. "Like you and the square root of pi?" Bar Mildred, everyone looked at John in befuddlement, causing him to add for their benefit, "This young lady can recite the square root of pi to more decimal places than can possibly be healthy."

"I just remember what I've read, is all. I've gone over some really bad scripts I _wish_ I could forget – unfortunately, it's all up here," she lamented, tapping herself on the forehead. "No wonder it's so hard finding something worth watching on TV, with all the junk producers get sent."

"Seriously, when did you get so interested in this stuff?" Jenna queried again, more sharply this time.

It was harder for Mildred to get Jenna to think she was behaving normally than it was the others, as if the woman were closer to the family than Uncle John and therefore knew Gloria better. Her aunt had been on eggshells around her ever since she got back from the hospital, and she was pretty sure it wasn't just because the woman's sister died. It was because Mildred _wasn't_ her predecessor, and the perceptive woman could somehow _tell_.

"I don't know – priorities change when you almost die!" Mildred snarled, feeling pressured. "You try nearly drowning, and see if _you_ come out adhering to everyone's expectations!"

"Whoa there, honeybee!" John exclaimed, taken aback by her outburst but taking it in stride. "I think all your aunt means," he moved to mediate, throwing Jenna a dirty look, "is you've never showed any sign of enjoying these sorts of things before. _Right_ , Jen?"

"Uh, yeah..." Jenna agreed uncertainly, unconvincingly.

"Well, maybe you weren't _listening_ before!" Mildred big out, highly discomforted by the new atmosphere in the kitchen. Slapping her hand down hard – dislodging her crossword and causing it to skate down the counter – she informed them, "I've always been interested in dancing and singing and theater. It's just nobody _cared_. Don't pretend to start now just because Mom and Dad are _dead_."

It was a low but necessary blow. If she was going to make the woman feel guilty enough to not pursue whatever thoughts she may have about her niece's new oddities, Mildred needed something heavy to draw attention away from them.

Slipping from her stool, Mildred tried to storm out the room…only to find John blocking her path. Her hackles began to rise and she tried to push past, but he was having none of it.

"Now, I don't think you're being fair to your aunt," he chastised gently. "I know neither of us have been around as much as we probably should've been while you were growing up, but we're _all_ on edge right now. We _do_ care about what you're interested in – we _always_ have," he insisted. "The thing is, we've all lead very separate lives until now… You need to cut her some slack."

_Traitor._

Embodying very much the enraged teenager, Mildred turned back to Jenna with a lingering scowl. "Alright," she allowed, "I'm sorry I shouted… But… I just– You keep giving me these looks like I'm behaving weird, and all I can think is… Well, _of_ course I am – I nearly died and Mom and Dad are gone, and it's my fault, and here you are treating me like a basket-case. I just want to _move on_ with my life, do what I want to do...because you never know when you might– wh– When you might..."

She trailed off – some sentences didn't need finishing to get across your meaning.

     What happened next was not something Mildred planned for – it wasn't even acting.  
  
          It was real and visceral and totally overwhelming.

The minutiae of all the insanity crashed down on her like a mile high Jenga tower toppling over to bury her. She was stuck here, she might be completely troppo, she might be hurt out in reality...she might never see her real-family, her real- _world_ again…

     She broke down.

Chest heaving, breathing ragged and uneven, she found herself struggling to stay standing all of a sudden. Tears streaked down her face – out of place, she felt bizarrely glad she'd not been able to find her predecessor's mascara earlier on – turning her cheeks into a hot, sticky mess.

Trying to leave the room again so she could go be some place on her own, she stumbled and John deftly caught her. She clung to him, for want of a better method of staying upright; all she succeeded in doing was dragging her uncle down to the floor with her, Mildred partially strewn across his lap. They leaned against the wall as she sobbed. Half-formed sentences fell from her mouth between shaky breaths, before being cut off because she didn't know where they were going anyway, or even what she wanted to say.

Uncle John held her, rocking slightly while he cooed words of encouragement in her ear. She wasn't quite sure what he was murmuring. Her head was spinning, the tension that had filled her ever since the impossible-accident spiraling out of control.

Why was she trapped in this place? This stupid place where her 'parents' had just died, she didn't know anyone and none of them really knew _her_ because they thought she was someone else, and where vampires and witches and werewolves were _real_. Was she dead? Was this some kind of God awful prison of an afterlife?

Were her real parents missing her? Was time passing the same for them? Was Lucy looking for her? Had she lost her job at the theater?

Just...why was this happening? And why did it all feel so damn _realistic_?

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay… Just let it all out… You're safe. Everything's going to be fine – it's going to get better, okay?"

Through hiccups and sniffles, Mildred gasped, "I– I'm just so confused… I, I don't _understand_ … Why is this _happening to me_?"

He didn't ask what she didn't understand, just saying, "We're all a bit lost right now. Things look bad because it's so _fresh_. You've got to remember, your… your father and I lost our mother young, just like you have, and eventually the pain _does_ fade. Never entirely – just enough to let us move on..."

If the death of the Gilbert parents _had_ been her problem, then perhaps what Uncle John was peddling would've actually helped. It certainly came across as sound produce.

As it was, her real problem was that _nothing_ was real, that she seemed to experiencing some kind of Donna-in-the-Library faux-world life. She had no idea whether it was because she'd gone crazy, or if the accounting of her senses was – somehow... _impossibly_ – correct. Was she truly in this TV-land, a la Changing Channels? Was she actually Gloria Gilbert but had somehow dreamed up a whole other life while in that week-long coma? Or – and this was the most worrying possibility – had a lifetime of stretching for an unobtainable dream actually lead to her checking out of real-life and taking a psychotic trip to la-la land?

Would she ever know the answer? Would things ever return to the way they had been before the start of this surreal dream, the moment in which she seemed to have checked out of sensible reality?

There on the kitchen floor, tucked into her new uncle's comforting embrace, Mildred's rapid descent into hysteria mellowed out. Worn from the lengthy crying jag, her eyes drooped as her breathing evened, and her body managed to regulate her heart once more, reestablishing a healthy lub _-_ lub rather than the jackhammer beat of her breakdown.

Just before she slipped into the unrousable sleep of the truly emotionally exhausted, she thought she heard a feminine, staticky voice hovering on the periphery of the room.

     There was a strange crackle, interspersed with, "Oh, ain't it a right fine mess you've gone and dropped yourself into this time?"

   Then she entered Morpheus' embrace.

 

 

 **Mildred woke at five the next morning.** Behind the fuzz of her badly-tuned radio/alarm-clock humming out the opening bars of Both Sides Now, there can the gentle cawing of a bird from somewhere outside. The window was open, a breeze shifting the curtains slightly, and she could see it was a clear day through the gap between them.

As she hauled herself out of bed and prepared to take a shower, she wondered how she'd gotten to her room the previous night. It seemed likely John had to carry her, as she couldn't recall waking to climb the stairs under her own steam. She'd woken fully clothed – her legs itched from the horrible jeans she'd been stuck in all night – without even a blanket. It was a good job Mystic Falls was a lot warmer in June than Boston ever was.

After ten minutes of hunting, it turned out there was one acceptable dress in Gloria's closet, after all; it was forest green and had a skirt that made her think of both, contrastingly, cheerleaders and librarians. Unfortunately, the dress' bodice was a bit...non-school appropriate – tight and quite low cut, with two cutouts that would surely reveal more skin than she ought to around a bunch of hormonal teenage boys. Glancing between her risqué reflection, yesterday's stiff jeans and the mirror again, she decided to compromise by throwing one of her predecessor's sweater-vests over the top – hopefully nobody would think it too weird she was wearing one mid-summer.

It had been to Mildred's relief that, when she originally went through the closet, she found her predecessor's array of shoes had more bulk than her skirt collection. It was simple to pick out low-heeled, button-over shoes that girl probably kept for purposes of dancing – at one of those _thousands_ of Founding Family things, no doubt – but were black velveteen and comfortable.

Going to put them on, she suddenly thought better of showing too much thigh (for the aforementioned reason of leering teenage boys). She fished out some lacy hose that Gloria had probably worn with her expansive collection of shorts in the fall, when it was still too warm for pants but too cool to go out with bare legs. After all, from Mildred's perspective this was to be her first time meeting Gloria Gilbert's friends and peers; she wanted to make a good impression, even though _they_ didn't know it was their first time meeting her.

She pulled half this body's thick curls back with a clip, brushed imaginary lint off her skirt, located an acceptable purse, then nodded to herself in satisfaction. There was something to say for being a teenager again – she literally felt ten years younger, because...uh...she _was_. It was also magnificent that she could, for the first time since she was fourteen in the real-world, venture into public without a bra – amazing to consider how much weight she'd been carrying around strapped to her chest in real-life… It was no wonder she'd been off-balance most the time.

Everyone seemed surprised to see her glide into the kitchen hunting for breakfast or, at the very least, a soda. While Mildred chomped on some of the previous night's pizza that was leftover in the refrigerator, Jenna bugged out at her, the woman's coffee-colored eyes following her every move with disbelief.

Eventually, Mildred couldn't stand it anymore. _"What is it?"_ she asked exaggeratedly, her tone colored with innocent confusion. "Is there something on my face? Seriously, _what_?"

"It's just your face in general, sis!" Jeremy called from the living room, clad only in pajama bottoms and voice buried behind a staccato of gunshots and explosions. She guessed he _wasn't_ going to classes, then.

"Jerk!" Mildred called back, before returning her attention to Jenna.

"I'm just surprised to see you up and looking so-" her aunt gave her the once over, seemingly trying to find an accurate way to describe Mildred's appearance without insulting her "–all... _together_."

"If I went out in the altogether, I think I might get arrested."

"Slash _mobbed_ ," Jeremy pointed out realistically.

"Dude, I'm your sister, so... _ewww_."

Jenna stalked over to him and clipped him around the back of the head, before turning to Mildred with shuttered eyes. "I'm just wondering what the occasion is? Up early, out your pajamas and in such... _colorful_ clothes, not drowning yourself in a gallon of Chunky Monkey..."

Mildred raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Drowning? . _..Seriously?_ Thanks for that," she sneered coolly, deprecatingly, before putting on her most determined face and reminding the woman, "I'm going to school."

"After last night? You've got to be kidding me! This is not a good idea!"

Her aunt's words brought with them a surreal mental image of her real-life father's definition of 'kidding', involving goats and the ass of a man you disliked.

Brushing it aside, she left no room for argument when she told the woman, "I'm going, Jenna, whether you like it or not. It's what I want to be doing, not sitting around here _drowning_ myself in ice cream."

She heard John coming down the stairs behind her. Excellent, the cavalry was here.

Not turning to greet her uncle just yet, Mildred smiled at her faux-aunt. "Really, I'm _okay_. I feel a lot better after last night–" she shrugged, pretending to be chagrined "–I guess you guys were right, it just hadn't all synced properly, but… Well, I feel... _good_ this morning, fresh. _I'm going to school_."

"Would you mind giving me a ride, Uncle John?" she concluded, turning on the spot to face the fair-haired man who had made her feel so welcome since arriving in this world. "I really don't want to walk, and I can't remember the last time I took a _bus_ – where's the stop, even?"

John smiled thinly but warmly enough. "I can take you if you're sure you want to go. I need to be heading out early anyway – got a few things to discuss with the Sheriff."

Jenna narrowed her eyes at the man, turning into a strange sort of ostrich with her neck outstretched, hands on her hips, and making a funny squawk of protest. "I don't want her to go. Don't tell me you _condone_ this, John? It's not been long enough. She had a _breakdown_ last night, for God's sake!"

"Tell me, Jen, how long after getting the call did you hit town? A few hours at most? Your sister and her husband dead, Magda traumatized, Gloria in a coma?" If there was a point, Uncle John was slow in reaching it – perhaps for the purpose of effect, which she could appreciate. "Despite all that, you didn't wait for me to get here before making medical choices for Gloria, did you? You didn't decide your grief was too severe for you to make rational, life-or-death decisions.

"This _isn't_ life-or-death, it's just high school. If _you_ can make life-support decisions hours after Miranda died, I think Gloria can choose to go back to school two weeks later if she wants."

     Yeah, _go John_ – kick her butt!

Mildred _knew_ there was a reason she'd waited for him to overhear the conversation before really laying into Jenna. It wasn't that the woman wasn't nice – because she _was_ – but she was naive for her age.

The tension in the air was thick, electricity arcing between the two adults – well, the official ones not possessing the teenage body of a TV character, anyway – in the room as they stared each other down. Neither of them said a thing, somehow successfully managing to communicate, argue with only their eyes. Thirty seconds stretched out to forever – just how it often did in her proper-dreams – and then a whole minute had ticked by…

Jeremy coughed, and the stare-down broke.

"Well just be off now, then," John announced, apparently having won the fight. "Shall we?"

Mildred nodded, pulled her purse closer into her side and mentally checked down the list of what was inside: Lip gloss, notepads, pens, calculator, random textbooks. Potentially she wouldn't need anything else from her room; she was hopeful that, should she somehow discover the combination, everything else required would be in her locker.

She trailed John out the house. He strode quickly down to the curb but she lingered for a moment, feeling leaving this in silence was the wrong thing to do. Her instincts for interpersonal interaction were usually quite good, despite the fact her real-life job had cast her adrift from most her friends. She _was_ an actress, after all, so reading people and understanding their motivations was an important part of her skillset.

In this situation...she should behave like she was annoyed with Jenna – easy, because she _was_ – but not leave without a word. So, she turned back to the woman, who was glaring unblinkingly at the front door as if she could make Mildred change her mind by will alone.

"Oh, and for the record, I prefer Caramel Chew-Chew," Mildred commented somewhat spitefully, making silly train-wheel motions with her arms like a toddler pretending to be a locomotive. "Chunky Monkey _sucks_."

There, that should do it. Immature and oddly hard hitting… Like saying 'I'm a pissed off teenager' with an offended, underlying current of 'Don't you know me _at all_?"

The ride to school passed without conversation.

The radio was switched to the local station, mostly churning out tracks Mildred had never heard before. John didn't seem to be the sort to need to fill the stillness with anything, which she appreciated greatly because she wanted to memorize the route to the high school best she could. That wasn't to say there was a void between the two of them, or that the ride was socially unpleasant – there just didn't seem to be a need to say anything.

The high school turned out to be close to the center of town. John smoothly turned into the parking-lot, and she had just enough time to catch a sign with a large crow pecking at flakes of rust on the top; the words _Richard C. Lee High School_ were embossed in ochre. The school was a large, yellow-brick building that had probably been built in the twenties, judging by some of the more art-deco shapes styled into it. It sat in the middle of an enormous lawn, where students waiting for classes to start hung about in small groups.

"Here we go..." John murmured, as if to himself, as he carefully parked up.

He killed the engine, then shifted his body to face her. "Now, I know your aunt thinks this is a bad idea – I don't agree. Being back with your friends is what you need, a sense of normalcy, and I get that. But if you're feeling bad, overwhelmed, I want you to go home."

"Okay, I can do that," she agreed sagely, nodding. "Will you be able to pick me up later?"

"No can do, honeybee. I'll be out of town by this afternoon."

Mildred's face folded in on itself, a sense of horror building up in her chest. Uncle John _couldn't_ leave – he was the only one making her feel sane!

Head hung dejectedly, she confessed, "But I _need_ you..."

John looked surprised. "It's funny, you know, because until now I'm not sure we've ever really gotten along. Actually, I was under the impression you pretty much _hate_ me – never the fun uncle, always pushing you and Jeremy to try harder… I don't know, but these past days… I'm glad we've finally had a chance to connect, Gloria – I'm just sorry it took my brother passing away to do it."

She couldn't imagine ever having not liked Uncle John. Obviously, her predecessor didn't know a good person when she saw one...and possibly had a poor sense of humor that was unappreciative of the man's _very_ dry wit.

"I can come back to town the moment you need me, all right – you only have to ask," he promised, taking both her hands in his. "I want you to go out there and show the world how well you can get along, even though everything hurts right now. Hang out with your friends, get your class work done, follow your dreams."

She looked up, his familiar blue eyes holding hers, when he said earnestly, "What you were saying last night about wanting to act – or to sing or dance… _I_ don't think it's stupid, so don't listen to Jenna and Jeremy. If it's really what you want, _show me_. Join the theater-club, get involved with the Lockwoods' dance-studio – goodness knows, _someone_ ought to before that woman has another nervous breakdown – perform in the town talent show. Prove to me you're getting beyond this, that you're prepared to work for it, and I'll make sure you get all the help you need."

"I– I can do that," she replied, more than happy to participate in any activities that allowed her to do what she loved, and might eventually lead to better things. It's not like any of those things he'd mentioned would exactly be a chore.

John nodded, appearing pleased. "Good, good. And if you're doing well, I'll foot out of my own pocket for you to get anything that helps you build on your talents – stage lessons, voice coaches, an agent even. Remember, if you really want something you have to _make_ it happen."

It was good advice – shame it had never worked for her in the past. Maybe, locked within a world that was literally created from her dreams, she could finally make something of herself. It wouldn't be quite real – not the kind of real that was tangible to anyone else – but at least it would feel real to _her_. What was the point of being trapped in Unreality if you couldn't even have a little fun to keep yourself afloat?

"Why are you doing this? Offering to help me."

"I'm your… I'm your _uncle_ , Gloria – your happiness matters to me," he swore, though he was wearing a somewhat strained expression – like he wasn't quite sure how best to go about reassuring a teenage girl. "When you were born my brother promised to raise you, love you, take care of you. He's not about to keep that promise, so I've got to step up. I might not be very _good_ at it, I might make mistakes along the way, but I _am_ here for you if you need me."

Suddenly overcome with an impossible gratefulness toward Uncle John, Mildred tried to hug him; she was only half-successful because her purse caught on the handbrake. She laughed through a sparse layer of tears (which had materialized on her cheeks without her notice) and got out the car.

The air was thick with the scent of freshly mowed grass and tree pollen – something familiar to her from her teen years in Peterborough. She went around the car to give John a proper hug, which he returned only a little stiffly; she supposed it had been easier for him to be there for her when she was pretty much inconsolable last night. Her impression was that there was usually no love lost between him and the Gilbert children, making her display of gratitude unprecedented.

"Thank you," she whispered into his light jacket, before pulling back.

He looked a little overcome himself. "Just call if you need anything, Gloria. I'll be here if you need me."

Her brow furrowed. "I don't actually know where my phone is – I've been doing without."

"Wehn did you last see it?"

Good question.

"I was speaking to Bonnie, I was outside...on the road… Oh… Oh!" she exclaimed, pushing down a renewed awareness of exactly what had happened next. When her uncle shot her an inquisitive look, she explained, "I was texting in the car that night – I suppose I...I must have lost it in the water."

Understanding crossed John's face, but he didn't force her to elaborate further. Instead, he said, "You should've said something earlier, so I could've put a line out to the insurer. If I'd known you had no way to contact people, I would've gotten something sorted before you came back to school. I'll drop Jenna a message, let her know you need a new one, okay?"

"Thanks… Really, for _everything_."

Before he left, he gruffly told her she was welcome and paraphrased a few of his own words from the car. She agreed she would make sure she went on as her 'parents' would've wanted, even though she had almost zero clue what sort of people they were and what they wanted for their daughters. If this was real and there was some sort of afterlife they were watching from, they were likely very unimpressed about the current Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario occurring in their household.

Navigating the halls of a high school you'd never been to – but people believed you had been attending for the past three years – was difficult. It took her five minutes of lurking, watching how the student body moved and the shifting currents of various age groups, to work out the front office was down a hallway to the right. She set off along the royal blue carpet, soon coming to an open set of double doors; they lead into a small reception manned by a dumpy woman with frizzy red hair and oversized pearl earrings.

The woman didn't look up when Mildred approached, engrossed in her computer – either she was very interested in her work, or she was playing solitaire/minesweeper. Mildred cleared her throat politely, and the woman glanced at her from beneath a heavy fringe.

"What do you need," the secretary asked sharply – it must've been difficult for her to do that, considering her drawling southern accent. "Not _another one_ wanting to transfer out of biochem? Because I'll tell you the same thing I told the last kid, it's biochem or floor mopping the rest of your life. Everything else is full."

Taken aback by the woman's hostility, Mildred responded, "No! Uh, no, nothing about biochem. I just need a new class schedule..."

"What – you think we're just made of paper?"

Both affronted and exasperated, Mildred kept a lid on her temper by reminding herself that the show's Elena had been non-confrontational in general – and a complete yellow-furred, drama fraidy-cat at worst.

Even so, she couldn't help but add some sarcasm to her tone while noting, "You don't _look_ like an origami-person," squinting down at the grumpy woman. "But mine got wet, it's unreadable. I really just need a new one, please."

Grumbling, the woman acquiesced. "Fine – name?"

"Gloria Gilbert."

The woman span her mouse-wheel, presumably scrolling down the roll sheet. "Junior, date of birth June twenty-second, eighty-eight?" she droned.

Mildred nodded absently, causing the woman to make a few clicks then launch her spinny-chair back across the office with alarming velocity. The receptionist pulled the new schedule out the printer almost before the last line was inked, scooting back to the front-desk with it.

"There you go. Try not to ruin this one."

Wow, somebody was perky this morning.

Leaving the office disgruntled by the secretary's rudeness, Mildred peeked down at her schedule. It seemed a little...odd, in her opinion. There was English language, homeroom, French, biochem and a free period on _A_ days; English literature, physics, economics and government, and gym on _B_ days; then a horrific combination of math, separate algebra, health, and history on the one _C_ day, which was Friday. She guessed the more interesting subjects had been worn out the previous semester, which was a shame. It would've been nice to have art or drama or just _something_ creative. It seemed that, bar English literature, Gloria Gilbert was not the artistic type. God, with _this_ schedule even geography or a debate class would brighten up her week.

Idly wondering how her predecessor had gotten so far into her junior year without committing suicide from the sheer tedium of it all, Mildred made note of the number of the classroom her first lesson – English literature – was held in. From the _2_ preceding it, it was safe to assume it was on the second floor; beyond that, she hadn't a clue. She also didn't have any of the required texts for the day, and no hope in hell of guessing which locker was 'hers'.

She was plodding slowly down the hall, eyes fixed on the floor in an attempt to avoid the student body's weighty stares, when suddenly her path was blocked by a large pair of feet. Her head shot up to meet electric blue eyes set in a wide, tan face that had the last remnants of puppy-fat hanging on at the edges. From the sandy-blond hair and expression of deep devotion carved into his features, it was pretty safe to assume this was Matt, Gloria's boyfriend. He was even better looking in real life than in photos.

     Gulp.

"Gloria," he breathed, sounding all too much like Damon asking if she was Catherine on that road. "It's… It's so good you're here," he said very honestly.

Looking back down at her feet, Mildred pointed out, "There's not much to do but wallow in misery at home. Thought I could be sad here just as well."

"I'm so sorry about your parents, Ri. If I'd known–" his voice broke a bit "–what would happen that night, I swear I never would've argued with you, never would've let you storm off… I'm _so_ sorry. God, you hate me now, right? That's why they wouldn't let me in at the hospital, or your place, yeah?"

She frowned, partially in confusion because she didn't know she'd had any house calls – a well meaning aunt or uncle probably sent him away – and partially in thought. How would _Gloria/Elena_ reply?

"Listen, Matt, it's not your fault," she began as certainly as she could. "It _can't be_. It was just a freak accident."

"Yeah… But if I hadn't upset you, you wouldn't even've been out there. I'd've driven you home like I was sposed to, your parent's wouldn't come to pick you up – no accident..."

"There's not much point in 'what if this' and 'what if that'." Except Mildred really _did_ love what ifs – and that might be what got her into this mess. "It happened, me and Magda got out okay, and that's that. I'm not going to use you as a scapegoat because you blame yourself somehow."

"Your _little sister_ was in the car? Oh God, Bonnie _never mentioned that_!"

He sounded horrified.

"Yeah, she was. Like I said, though, she's alright," Mildred reiterated, bemused by the force of his worry over the small girl.

"That God she is – I mean, she's so _young_ … That would've been _awful_ ," he whispered, guilt filling his voice. He pressed his lips together – perhaps to hold composure – before asking, "How are _you_? Bon said you were in a coma, and I couldn't get in to see you – I'm not family, see. And I kept calling but you never picked up, and you've not been online, and–"

"Whoa, whoa there, one at a time! I _was_ in a coma for a week but I woke up – obviously – and there's no longterm damage. I've not been on the laptop at all 'cause I forgot my password, and I lost my phone that night, so..."

"Oh...right, course you did," Matt said, looking embarrassed by his outburst but still a bit doubtful. Humorlessly he added, "I should've guessed you weren't just ghosting me for getting your parents killed–"

"You did not! It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the weather and really bad luck."

"–or something. But...your uncle said you didn't want to see me?"

Perturbed, Mildred contemplated this. "He's just feeling overprotective," she decided reasonably. "I mean, he's Dad's brother. Plus, he nearly lost me and Mags too that night. He's only looking out for me."

Matt's expression said he understood. He was halfway through nodding and asking if she wanted him to come to her house tonight, when two new faces peeked out from behind the boy's broad shoulders.

One of the newcomers was a tall brunette who looked to be of vaguely Mediterranean heritage; she wore a lacy fitted blouse and stupidly high heels. At a glance, Mildred didn't find her familiar, so immediately disregarded her as some friend of the second girl.

With blond curls and sparkling hazel eyes, the other girl was extremely pretty and entirely recognizable: It was Caroline Forbes, one of Elena Gilbert's best-friends on the show. (Though, thinking on it, they _had_ seemed a bit at odds in the first season.) She looked exactly the way Mildred remembered her from the show – petite with delicate features, and effulgent countenance and dazzling smile.

"Hey, Caroline," Mildred greeted lamely, shuffling her feet a bit.

"Gloria!" she squealed, leaping around Matt to almost-literally throw herself around Mildred.

The hug was tight enough to bend rebar, but full of so much genuine affection it was impossible not to return it. Caroline was shorter than she was by perhaps a handspan, and her perfume smelled slightly musky rather than floral.

Pulling her head back to escape the mouthful of blond hair she'd mistakenly inhaled, Mildred gasped, "Can't breathe," in a strained voice.

Caroline relinquished her freakishly-strong hold instantly. "Gosh, sorry! I'm just so happy to see you, and you're _okay_! I've been so worried, and they wouldn't let me near you at the hospital, and you weren't at the funeral… It's been awful – they wouldn't let us in even when they thought you might not...you know, not make it, and we wanted to say 'goodbye' just in case. I mean, what's _with_ that? We're good as family!"

"It's okay, Caroline – Matt was just complaining the same thing. Maybe I should have you guys put on an approved-visitors list or something?" Mildred joked halfheartedly.

Gloria's friend frowned in return, sternly demanding, "Are you planning on nearly dying a lot?"

Laughing and shaking her head, Mildred gifted the girl with the first wholly genuine smile she'd worn in days. For some reason, she was immediately – and possibly paradoxically – relaxed by Caroline's bubbly, in-your-face personality. People might have kind of treated this girl as stupid and vapid on the show – like she was a throwaway, dime-a-dozen character – but it was abundantly clear to Mildred that the blond had a heart of gold and took her friendships seriously.

The three of them began walking, leaving the sidelined brunette behind. Matt and Caroline chattered away with Mildred contentedly silent beside them. She had no idea where they were going but her predecessor's boyfriend halted at a set of lockers just past the girl's bathroom, swiftly getting it open and rummaging through it for, she assumed, his books.

When he caught her vacant expression, he turned and asked, "Hey – you 'kay, Ri?"

She allowed her eyes to meet his distantly, murmuring, "I don't know, it's just...everything feels different. Like I've never been here before."

His face was soft as he told her, "Everything changes when you lose your parents. When Dad died, even my house felt like somewhere new I didn't understand. Then Mom started going out and not always coming back in the mornings, then she'd be gone for weekends, then months at a time… I guess what I'm trying to say is – nothing looks the same after."

Mildred nodded, then tried to play up her disorientation for the benefit of learning about the school in a way that wouldn't make it obvious she was an imposter in this life.

"I just...I don't know how to get about anymore. I can put my best clothes and best smile on, but I can't even remember where my locker is, where our classes are… Everything's just...wrong… I don't know where I am."

Tugging on her shoulder, Caroline calmly lead her over to the other side of the hallway. The sweet girl guided her to locker number _213_ and gave her an expectant look.

"You don't need anything out?" she asked, worrying her lip in concern.

Heaving a great sigh, Mildred shook her head as Matt rejoined the two of them. "I don't even remember the combination," she lamented quietly. Allowing her face to fall linto a little moue of confused despair, she added, "It's like...like the water washed everything away. I don't know who I am anymore – I don't know my name, what I want to do when I grow up, my own family. Everythings..."

"Hey, _hey_!" Caroline exclaimed, drawing Mildred in for another hug, "It's okay, it's cool. We get it, we really do – I mean, Matt and I don't exactly have an awesome parental track-record… Are you sure you should be in today? Not that I don't want you here, but it just seems so soon after..."

She was very glad she wasn't required to cry to make it believable; in the end, Mildred knew nothing of the Gilbert parents and didn't feel a keen pain at their loss, but _she_ did have a lot to draw on in the case of feeling 'lost' because this was _not_ her world. Method acting for the win.

"No. I wanted to be here, to see you guys," she said, looking up at them both gratefully. "It doesn't do much good to mope about the house, it's not what they would've wanted."

"What about your locker? Have you really forgotten the combo?" the little blond asked worriedly.

Nodding, Mildred admitted, "I was hoping I could just share books… You guys wouldn't mind, right?"

Matt shrugged and Caroline's luminescent smile made a fresh appearance on her face.

"I'd let you share mine," she offered helpfully, "but they'd probably give us some pretty nasty scowly-faces if you turned up in Sophomore Spanish with me!"

 _Wait_ , Caroline was a sophomore? Hadn't she been in the same year as Elena on the show?

Matt chuckled awkwardly, slinging one arm around Mildred in a way that was warm – it would've been comforting if she hadn't met him only fifteen minutes earlier. Then again, she'd been ready to have Damon drag her into the forest for some quick and dirty nookie within five minutes of _them_ meeting; although, in her defense, she'd thought she was having a normal dream...and that vampire was majorly _hot_ , and an awesome kisser to boot.

"You can use my books, Ri..." her predecessor's boyfriend offered quietly. "It's not like we don't sit next to each other every class anyway."

So they had the same schedule? _Of course_ they did – they were supposed to be 'together'. He and her predecessor had probably picked their classes together to make sure they'd never be apart. She found that more disturbing than sweet, more suffocating than relieving, but right now there wasn't much she could do about it.

As he took her by the hand and led her down the corridor, Mildred realized she had to break up with poor Matt, and it would be best to do it before the softly-spoken boy was caused any further pain on her account. Why in the world hadn't her predecessor done it in the few months since writing about it in her diary? Mildred could see how it would be hard to hurt such an agreeable, gentle-hearted person, but stringing him along was far worse.

Yeah, she had to fix the girl's mistake at the first opportunity. Preferably _today_.

 


	5. Alterations Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand changes to history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Mary Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: Mildred tries to crack the code to her predecessor's locker, dislikes history, and is confuzzled-to-tears by things learned on the Internet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh...I guess this is where shit starts to get weird. You see, I did some world building for another fic a long time ago, then had the bright idea 'Hey, why not set other things in this world', so now you're presented with crazyland. Eventually, if I'm lucky, things might start to make some sense.

 

 

 

_june_  
alterations found

 

 

**Splitting up with Matt was heartbreakingly easy in the most literal sense:** it was not physically difficult for her to do so. However, _emotionally_ it was a tricksy task. This was mainly because the boy was just so nice, so sweet and understanding about everything, and still felt very guilty about the part he perceived himself to have played in the death of the Gilbert parents. Even telling him there was nothing wrong with him at all, and that it was all her problem – the age-old cliché – had no effect on his puppy-dog eyes or the resigned slump in his shoulders.

Despite feeling like an evil witch who'd just callously stomped all over his affections and – if Gloria Gilbert's diary was to be believed – his many hopes and plans for the future, Matt still drove her home. Even worse was that he offered to ferry her to and from school every day until the end of the semester.

"It's not far out my way," he told her when she tried to refuse, apparently not willing to take 'no' for an answer. "I've gotten two weeks off pooling duties already – think I can afford to get off my ass and make sure you get in okay."

Wondering exactly how much that _would_ cost Matt – though sure that wasn't the type of 'afford' he meant – she resolved to hide a couple of twenties somewhere among his albums every week. If she was going to take advantage of the boy's kindness, the least she could do was pay him back for the extra-mileage incurred. Though the days of five-dollars-a-gallon gas hadn't come yet – well, it was never _that_ bad from what she recalled...but it'd sure gotten near – she'd rather not put Matt out too much.

Before getting out the car, she turned to him.

"I don't want you to wait for me," she said softly but firmly. He looked confused so she continued, "I know I said I need time to work stuff out in my head, deal with everything going on, that I'm just not in the right place to be _with_ someone right now… But I don't want you to wait for me, throw away who knows how many months on some hope we'll get back together. You're one of my best-friends, Matt, and I want you to be _happy_ – go out there and find some nice girl who actually deserves you. Forget about me."

" _You_ deserve me, Ri...and I could never forget you. I'm gonna be taking you to school every day, anyways – if I forget you you'll have no ride and fail everything," he jokes, although she can see the pain his eyes.

She forced a snort, knowing he was only taking her so literally for the sake of levity. "I know but...we've had a good run, fun together, right? We've known each other since we were in diapers. I just don't want you to worry about my feelings or anything if you want to see someone else. I...I just need to know I'm not holding you back."

Matt raised his hands to display his surrender. For a moment Mildred was forcibly reminded of Damon doing the same thing on the road when he was messing with Grayson. She wondered where the vampire was now...and how much of a hoe-bag she herself seemed to him, considering her super-loose actions that night.

"Okay, I _promise_ – I promise! No moping," Matt swore. Offering a friendly smile melting enough to have all the girls-next-door beating down his, he claimed, "I'll be at the Grill tonight...topless–"

"Coated in baby-oil?" she clarified cheekily.

"Yeah," he chuckled, "and _that_...chatting up the single ladies of Mystic Falls, telling them all about how the wicked, even Gloria Gilbert broke my poor little heart. Do you think that'll get me some sympathy action?"

Laughing again – genuinely this time – and praying Matt's ability to kid was more than just an act, she nodded. "Definitely. You might want to throw a free calendar in but...you work that broken heart, they'll eat it up like candy."

He leaned out the window when she finally got out his car. "Don't you worry 'bout me, Ri. I've known this was coming for a while now. I love you, I could've spent forever with you – God, you're my best-friend – but I'm gonna be fine. Don't you worry, hear me?"

She promised not to, even though she knew she wasn't going to be able to put his pain completely out of her mind; in the day she'd known him, Matt had grown on her significantly. She rushed into the house to prevent her doing anything stupid… Like kissing him for being so nice to her even when she was ripping his heart out, because that would be sending some seriously mixed-signals. Besides, he was way too young for her anyway – she might have the appearance of a seventeen-year-old but that didn't change the fact she was twenty-seven on the inside and had never been much into the whole cougar thing. There was a big of an age-gap, then there was downright _illegal_.

As John had told her he would be this morning, he was already gone from the Gilbert home when she arrived. It made Mildred uncomfortable, knowing the one person in the household she'd really managed to _connect_ with was absent; she resolved to try and get along better with Jenna. The woman was young and clearly still reeling from her sister's death, a tragedy which had lead to her having to completely rearrange her life in order to care for a trio of dependents. At the age of twenty-six, raising two teenagers and one toddler wasn't really a normal job.

 

 

Over the next two days, things were quiet.

Jeremy had decided he wouldn't be returning to class until the new semester. When Mildred learned school would be out on June 21st, she realized this choice was actually a sensible one and saw she needn't have bothered going in for what amounted to a little over three weeks. Being trapped in the house with a group of people who weren't feeling particularly stable, however, wasn't her idea of fun. Better linear algebra and the history of the telephone than non-stop Call of Duty and their aunt's questionable lunch menu.

On Thursday, she had Matt pick her up for school almost a whole hour early. When they got in she set to work on cracking the code for her locker.

"Exactly how's this meant to go?" Matt asked her, holding a notepad and pencil to take down the numbers she gave him.

"Well," she explained, resetting the padlock after it jammed at thirteen, "we note the numbers it gets stuck at. There should be twelve, I think. Then we do some math jiggery-pokery–" came first in that, failed hullabaloo...and God her brain needed to stop quoting at her constantly "–and we should come up with the combination."

"Don't these things have, like, a hundred-thousand possible combos?"

"Yeah, Mildred acknowledged, sticking her tongue out in concentration as she waited for the lock to jam again. "But I should be able to get the possibilities down to less than a hundred. Then it's just trial and error."

"So that's why you wanted to get here so early. How long's this going to take?"

"We've got a pencil and I've got ears and hands, so not long. Here we go, sticking at thirty-three – best write that down."

Leaning against the wall of lockers, Matt looked down at her with a frown. "Should I worry why you know how to break a combination lock?"

"Probably… This isn't the first time I've forgotten a combo." Okay – so that wasn't true, but she _had_ helped other people who'd forgotten their combinations before. "You know how much the school charges you for a new one?"

"Shouldn't they have all the combo's on record?"

"You'd think, wouldn't you, but when I asked Mrs. Whatsername she said they don't keep a log of them, and if I'd forgotten I'd have to order – and pay for – a new one myself. Makes me wonder how people get theirs at the start of the year."

"The seniors hand in a list for the freshman – you know, so they can get into them and change the codes. Don't you remember? The inside of my locker was covered in all those sparkly animal stickers when I first got it," Matt recalled with a scrunched up nose. "Took weeks to get rid of them."

Having seen the inside of the boy's locker – which still had photos of Gloria pinned to the inner door – Mildred suspected he hadn't managed to get rid of them so much as covered them up with a bucket of latex-paint. It was a good thing, too, because no boy needed a herd of girly stickers in the place they were supposed to store their stuff for four years.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" Caroline greeted loudly, trotting up to them in adorable kitten heels and a rig-rag skirt.

Mildred shushed her, pressing her ear closer to the lock.

"What's she doing?"

Matt was the one who answered. "Trying to crack her locker-combo so she can get her stuff. She's roped me in to be her evil, bank-robbing sidekick. We'll be busting open the Chase's in town later, if you're interested in a life of crime?"

Caroline giggled and playfully whacked Matt on the shoulder. Then she asked, "Seriously, though – she can do that?"

"Looks that way. Seems to be a system to it-"

"It sticks at twelve numbers. The ones that aren't whole are useless," Mildred announced, withdrawing from the padlock and grabbing the notepad from her friend. "So we just want the whole ones, which gives us-" she wrote the whole numbers in a line on a clean page "–three, thirteen, twenty-three, thirty-three and thirty-eight. So the last number in the combo's thirty-eight."

Caroline and Matt looked confused. The former wondered, "How can you know that?"

Mildred _hmmm_ ed absently and muttered, "It's the only one not ending in three." Her pencil moved to do the required sums to find out the possibilities for the other two numbers in the combination. "Four goes into thirty-eight nine times, remainder two… Four plus two is six, plus four is ten, fourteen, eighteen..."

"Do you have any idea what she's doing?"

"Messed up four-times-table?"

After a few minutes working, she had all the possible combinations set out in front of her. No matter what it had to end in thirty-eight. The first number was either six, ten, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-six, thirty or thirty-four; the second number had to be four, eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight or thirty-two.

Doing it methodically, she tried six, four, thirty-eight first, and then six, eight, thirty-eight...so on and so forth. It was trial and error from there on out, and so time-consuming she almost missed Matt pointing out the first bell had gone.

"You can use my books again, 'kay," he offered, prying her away from the lockers.

"Where's Care?" she asked, looking around the empty hallway.

"Music. She tried to say bye but you were kinda engrossed. We're gonna be late for English, and Mrs. Phelps might _look_ like a nice old lady but I'm pretty sure there's a dragon in her knitting-hamper."

Matt successfully maneuvered Mildred into the classroom before the second tardy-bell could ring – it was a near thing, though. Unsurprisingly (thanks to her friend's description), the rotund, matronly teacher was sitting idly at her desk – a sea of bored looking students before her – trying to work a knot out of a red ball of yarn. The woman didn't even look up to check they were all listening – or present, for that matter – before beginning to speak.

"Of the protagonists of the seven novels collectively written by the Devil twins – excluding Emmaline, as we must – which do you think is the hardest to relate to?" Mrs. Phelps asked without preamble, as if they were all halfway through a debate only she'd been paying attention to. "Which of these protagonists do you like least?"

The room was silent. First thing on a Wednesday morning wasn't the best time to be asking a bunch of sleepy teenagers their opinions about socially-stunted, historical characters as they were literarily portrayed by women of the time. Actually, there probably wasn't ever a good time to ask anyone not invested in the subject _that_ question.

Having garnered no response, Mrs. Phelps put down her knitting with a long-suffering sigh. "How about you, Mr. Spalden… You've completed the required reading, I assume?"

Looking like a deer already his by a car, rather than just startled by its headlights, a mousy-haired boy near the front of the class stuttered and stumbled out something which probably didn't make any sense even to him.

"I see," the teacher responded. "And you, Miss Sulez – which protagonist to you feel most unfavorably toward?"

"Uh...Kathy?" the tan, varsity-vomit brunette decided slowly.

"From the House on Wuthering Hill? Very good, very good. Why?"

"Because...I mean, well, she marries Edwin for his money and status, right, while Heath's gone," Cheer Girl answered, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she seemed to gain confidence. "She should've waited, shouldn't she? She's shallow and childish. She doesn't wait for true-love like she should've done."

Mildred coughed to cover up a snigger at the girl's simplistic thoughts on the book in question. It was the same girl that seemed to be one of Caroline's friends...though she hadn't spotted the two girls together at all today – perhaps they were just doing a project together or something?

Mrs. Phelps caught her amusement. Raising her brows, she asked, "Miss Gilbert, have you something to add? Perhaps you'd like to tell us which character _you_ dislike the most from the Devlin novels?"

" _Heath_ ," Mildred answered vehemently without needing to think on it, shooting a scathing look at the girl who'd decried Katherine.

"Your reasoning?"

"You mean other than the fact he treats his wife like shi– _garbage_? He's in love with his brother-in-law's wife – who is, coincidentally, his own adoptive-sister… And he forces _her_ daughter to marry his son, the two of them being first-cousins, to be sure he has control of the Linden estate when Edwin dies – all for revenge because Katherine married Edwin and not him." Recalling how she'd once heard it put in the real-world, she surmised, "So beyond him being a rancorous, morally-reprehensible, pseudo-incestuous rapist, you mean?"

Everyone stared.

Sensing she might have acted outside the acceptable ranges of Gloria Gilbert's personality, Mildred bit her lip and worried, "Was it something I said?"

"Uh, no, Miss Gilbert – those are all very good observations of Heath's character," Mrs. Phelps announced a little shakily, though why she would be off-kilter Mildred couldn't imagine.

Turning to the rest of the class, the woman queried, "Does anyone have anything else to add to your classmate's opinions of the..."

Mildred tuned the woman out.

When the bell rang, all the students hurried out the classroom. Matt stopped Mildred in the hall when they were just a few steps past the door.

"What _was_ that in there?" he wondered, his expression a strange cocktail of impressed and concerned.

Mildred shrugged, still not sure what she'd done wrong. Perhaps Gloria was shy about speaking up or something? Perhaps she wasn't the sort to offer up such a passionate, in-depth answer to a teacher's question. Or perhaps she simply wouldn't have _worded_ her response like that, would've been politer about it or something?

The thing was, though, she was in _the Vampire Diaries_ , which was basically the modern American version of _Wuthering Heights_ in many respects: Catherine loves Stefan but runs off for a few years – okay, a whole century – and when she comes back Stefan's all over her doppelganger. Catherine goes apeshit over it, playing steadily more insane and desperate ploys to try and get her lover back/take revenge. There were as many differences in the two stories as there were parallels, of course, but the foundations were pretty much the same.

"Seriously, Ri, _are you okay_? Having a go at Meredith like that? Being all–"

"I'm fine!" she snapped.

Whatever he'd been going to say was wisely aborted.

Shying away from his appraising stare, she looked up at the notice-board across the hall as a distraction. She saw posters advertising upcoming school parties and events (apparently the next decades dance was the forties, on the last day of school), tutors available in various subjects, and extracurricular clubs and activities. She learned from the notices that a teacher named Mr. Healey was putting on an end-of-semester production of that-Scottish-play-that-must-not-be-named, and that the recent cheerleader charity car wash had raised over a thousand dollars for a local organization which dealt with the distraught and bereaved relatives of missing persons (which, considering the supernatural activity rate in Mystic Falls and the effect for the local populace, was a very good cause).

"I know you must be in a real bad place right now," Matt tried again, sliding closer to her and putting a hand on her shoulder, "but I want you to know – we're all here for you. Me, Bonnie, uh... _Caroline_...even Meredith – though after _that_ , reckon you'll be getting the cold-shoulder off her a good while. But...we're here if you need us."

Who was Meredith? And, for that matter, _where_ was Bonnie? Mildred had completely forgotten about the girl's theoretical existence in the tempest which had been the past week.

Concluding these things didn't matter for now, she instead deflected Matt's well-meaning words. Pointing at a sign-up sheet that had caught her eye, she commented, "Would you look at that, Mystic Falls Talent Show – only three people on the list. Seems a shame."

She could hear his frown as he replied, "That's just the _school_ sheet. It's a town show, like every year. You _know_ that. There's a sheet in Town Hall and the Grill, too – I'm pretty sure the Grill's one's almost full."

He turned her around to face him, focusing all his attention on her in a way that made her suddenly fear he somehow _knew_ she was an imposter. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do," he began, and her heart leaped up into her throat. Then he continued, "I'm not going to let you shut us out. You've always been here for us – all of us – whenever we've needed you. It's our turn to be here for _you_ now. Let us."

Mildred _hmmm_ ed, covering up her relief over the fact he hadn't just outed her as _not_ -Gloria.

"Do you think we should do something for the talent show?" she considered aloud, still refusing to acknowledge his offer of comfort.

Seeming to accept she didn't want to talk about whatever was bothering her today, Matt shrugged. "What would we even do? I've still not gotten over the year you and Keira had me play the ugly-stepsister in Cinderetta."

Keira… Was that somebody in their group of friends? Most of whom, admittedly, she'd not actually met yet.

"When was that again?" she inquired innocently, fishing for more information having become an automatic thing since she woke up in this world.

"I don't know, second grade?"

"And you're _still_ upset about it?" she asked, snorting in a very ladylike manner.

"Hey, it was _majorly_ traumatizing," he whined melodramatically, laying the back of his hand across his forehead like a corseted woman about to faint. "No eight-year-old boy should be forced into drag by the girl he's crushing on."

Mildred snickered, tension leaving her body. "Still, do you think we should?"

"What would we even do? 'Cause I'm not gonna wear a frilly dress again!"

Several tardy students passing them stopped to stare, causing Matt to blush. Finding his embarrassment extremely entertaining, she couldn't help but giggle. He tried to give her an indignant glare but the overall effect was ruined by his slow-fading flush and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

"Boy am I glad you grew out of those dreams of being an actress," he praised snidely but humorously. Affecting a rather camp voice, he declared, "I don't think my pores could've taken any more of that awful stage makeup."

She smiled and jabbed him in the side with her elbow. It was interesting to know, though, that apparently Gloria Gilbert had wanted to act when she was young; it made Mildred ponder, once more, whether or not things in this dream-place had been altered from the show to suit her.

"We could do something musical," she suggested.

" _Pfft_ , you know I can't sing worth a damn."

"Okay, sure...but Caroline _can_."

Matt's eyebrows rose. "Really? I didn't know that. She any good?"

"Quite..." she declared, thinking of that time Caroline had sung _the Bangles_ on the show...to _Matt_ , now she came to think on it. She mused to herself, daydreaming about how nice it would be to do something she enjoyed and about John's deal with her. "Maybe I'll ask her."

The boy beside her shrugged. "If you want. I'm sure she'll be up for it – you know how she is with all this town-events shit. Anyways, we should move – we've already missed physics… No great loss there. Might as well camp-out in the cafeteria or something, no point catching just the last–" he peeked down at his phone for the time "–half-hour. Okay, so maybe there _would_ be a point in going then, but I don't want to..." He smiled apologetically and enquired, "Ditch?"

She nodded in total agreement. "Ditch."

The only thing she'd ever really learned in physics, anyway, was that gravity was a total bitch.

 

 

**By the end of school on Friday,** Mildred had worked out both why Matt was Gloria's best-friend, and why everyone in the school seemed to hate history.

The first was because, of course, Matt was one of the nicest people she'd ever met; he was effortlessly kind, genuinely cared, and had depth and seriousness but offered self-deprecating humor and sunshine when she most needed it… Essentially, he was the sort of boy worth loving. It was totally a shame she was a decade older than him on the inside – if she weren't...well, the guy was yummy and sweet and made her chest warm.

The reason for the second was that Mr. Tanner was Matt's opposite in all ways. Not only did the man make his subject as boring as humanly possible – she was positive only Professor Binns would be duller, and he _didn't_ qualify as human on account of being a ghost – but he liked to make up for his own inadequacies by treating his students poorly. He called her classmates stupid and useless for not instantly knowing the very things _he_ ought to be teaching them. Honestly, if Carlsberg _did_ do high school history teachers, then they'd made a real fuck up with this douchenozzle.

Neither of those things mattered, however, because everything that came in the week was completely overshadowed by her economics and government class. No, it was not usually a riveting subject – actually, it was a class she remembered dreading during her original, real-life high school days – but in this case, the turn of events was just so... _weird_. Like _Twilight Zone_ weird… And it caught her attention.

Behind the teacher (a substitute in his early thirties, who she'd not caught the name of) was a map of the US on the wall of the classroom govec was held in...and it was definitely _not_ the right shape. What should've been a third of the North American continent – Hawaii and Alaska inset – was instead only its southeast. It reminded her about that book she'd found whilst looking for Gloria's diary, the one called _Twenty-One States_. Mildred had assumed the text was just region-specific, but now it seemed the _whole US_ was tiny in this place.

More and more, as she went about day-to-day life, her environment was feeling less a dream and more a complex, confusing alternate-reality.

The titles of books were wrong. Well-known authors, actors and the like didn't seem to exist. The music on the radio was very jazz and classic-rock tinged. Plus, Caroline's Louboutin heels had blue soles. The movies being shown on TV were sometimes familiar, but a lot of the big blockbusters of 2006 were absent in favor of different films entirely. Also, the other day she'd seen what seemed to be a rerun of _Supernatural_...except it'd been called _Preter_ _natural_ , and the brothers were named Sean and David.

Just a few days ago she'd been contemplating the fact she technically knew the future here, that she would know ahead of time which movies were going to be big and what would flop, what new shows were yet to reach TV screens… Now, though, she couldn't be certain her mind hadn't twisted this place in a way that made it impossible to guess what was coming down the road. Why would she dream up a world where she could, conceivably, know everything before it happened – totally awesome gift, by the way – and then make her life far more difficult than it needed to be by fucking it all up? Or was it because she was unwell in real-life? Was she lying in some hospital bed in a coma, brain damaged and wasting?

She didn't know the answers to any of these questions. Most of them were outside her ability to understand; while she knew how to spot a dream while having it, she was seriously out of her depth here. The little brown A drawn on her hand this morning was no help, so she wasn't sure why she'd even bothered. She was _always_ dreaming now.

That night, Mildred did something she probably ought to have done the first weekend after arriving at the Gilbert household: She asked Jeremy for a loan of his laptop. She had to feed him some cock-and-bull story to cover up the real reason she didn't know her own password – he easily accepted the idea it managed to slip her mind in all the chaos of the accident. No matter that he knew, from Uncle John, she'd woken up with the ability to recite the square-root of pi to thirty decimal places, and a memory like _that_ isn't one that tends to forget much.

Opening the browser, she grimaced as it loaded all the tabs that had been in up the last time it was closed. Jeremy really needed to learn to use private browsing or something.

Hurriedly clicking closed _ponies4homies[dash]net_ , Mildred's first port of call was Google… It seemed to be called Googol here, a spelling that made her eyes hurt. She searched for Gloria Gilbert and got enough hits to make her dizzy, so she added 'Mystic Falls' to the parameters in the hopes of narrowing it down a bit. It came back with some photographs, a myplace page and a few articles from the website of local newspaper _the Ridgemont Times_. She opened the articles in new tabs to take a look at later, then searched for Facebook.

It turned out not even her damaged dream-world could deny Facebook was a thing, and she soon found herself on a site with a pale green header; _the Facebook_ was cut out of it, tilting the page in the way of negative space. A quick check showed she didn't have an account – based solely on the fact she couldn't find her name on the roster-list – but she assumed that was due to the fact the site was _still_ only open to university students. That was both odd and annoying, seeing as it _should_ be open to the public by now. There was a sign-up questionnaire to get invites to the beta before an upcoming public launch; she would wait until after dinner to fill it out, seeing as it was quite long and asked things that clearly expected essays in reply.

So she didn't have a Facebook page yet, couldn't go through her myplace photos because she was unable to log-in, and she had absolutely no idea what her own email address was… Really, so far this excursion on the make-believe web wasn't bearing much fruit.

Frustrated about finding out nothing more about her predecessor via the information she'd left behind online, she moved on to looking into the weirdness she'd experienced in economics and government.

The fact there only seemed to be twenty-one states was something that she'd been avoiding for the past few hours, purposefully engaging Matt in lively conversation during the car ride home so as to put it out of mind, and successfully having gotten Caroline's – excitable – agreement to perform in the town's talent contest before leaving school. There was no more putting it off, though – she _had_ to find out how fucked up this world was because she needed to be prepared; what if she never woke up from her coma and had to adapt to living the rest of her life here, after all?

So she clicked onto googol-imagery and trepidatiously typed in 'map north america'. What she got back was both fascinating and thoroughly disturbing. Everything was recognizable: The shape of the coastlines, the blue lines of rivers running across the landscape, the darkly splodged mountain ranges… But the borders were...crazy and not-right and made her feel like the floor had been taken out from underneath her.

The US was _minuscule_ , the panhandle of Florida successfully making the whole country look like a usable skillet. To the north the territory climbed enough to include the city of New York but not her old home in Peterborough; to the west, it stretched out to encompass New Orleans. Tracing the border up, she saw that as far out as Little Rock, most of Missouri and Illinois were on the US side, which then followed the Great Lakes – Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania were still part of the country.

The the west of Illinois, however, was a country called Rupland – it seemed to cover Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. On its west, it was bordered by a small area named the Roche Jaune Wilds, which she assumed to be Yellowstone. Also to the west was Forsmark, a nation standing on what should be Montana, Idaho, and parts of Utah. The Pacific Northwest was completely devoured by a country called Columbia, which started narrowly in the south, sitting atop Oregon and Washington, but quickly expanded in the north until it ate up most of Canada.

Not that there _was_ a Canada at all: There was Alba Nuadh in the Atlantic East, the First Nations of Nunavut and Saskatchewan in the center north and center south respectively, and then the vastness of Columbia in the east. Oh, and Alaska was still Russian.

     It was crazy.

Trying to keep a level head, Mildred stuck it out on Googol. She discovered Forsmark was a dependency of Sweden, and that both Rupland and Columbia belonged to the English Crown. Alba Nuadh seemed to belong to the _original_ Alba; a quick query revealed this to be a small nation in the north and west of what was once Great Britain.

South of Columbia was the First Nation of California – an independent country that seemed to be governed by only itself. To the east of the US and west of California was the Republic of Texas. Squished between Rupland, Texas and the US was a nation curiously named Louisiana; it only seemed to own a tiny portion of the land that should be the _state_ of Louisiana, but for some reason or another the fully-fledged country bore its name anyway. Louisiana was owned by France.

     Basically...WTF?

Feeling almost ancient – like someone who'd seen a whole world rise and fall, while everyone forgot it had ever been – and tired, Mildred stared at the map for almost an hour trying to make sense of this place where there weren't fifty states, where vampires were most probably real – even if she hadn't had it officially confirmed yet – and where Russia still owned the bit of land that was supposed to be Alaska. Fuck there being no _Apple_ here – there was no _Canada_.

All through dinner she wondered about the world she found herself in, and whether she would ever wake up and return to her own life. There wasn't any obvious way for her to do so, of course. It wasn't like she'd seen a 'break glass in event of emergency' sign sprawled across the sky, or been provided with a giant ax to do so. Likelihood was...she was in a coma. This idea was the only one Mildred had really entertained since 'waking up' – it was the only thing that made a lick of sense. Because if she _wasn't_ in a coma then she'd either gone completely hoopy for fruit-loops, or – and this was even less likely – she'd somehow entered and alternate-universe and begun an impromptu game of Spot the Body Snatcher...where she was the only participant.

In the end, it was only Jeremy's intervention that managed to snap her out of the repetitive cycle of how, why and what-the-fuck her mind had managed to get stuck in.

"So did you find what you needed?" he grunted halfway through dinner. He didn't look particularly interested in her answer, just like he couldn't stand the stilted silence anymore. "For the govec thing, right?"

It took Mildred a moment to notice he was speaking to her. Eventually, though her stupefaction she managed to get out, "Uh, yeah. I'm not done yet, though. Do you need the laptop back?"

"No no, it's cool," her brother grumbled. "I've got the tower. You gonna need somebody to bust into yours, though?"

"I hadn't thought about it. I guess so – if someone _can_?"

He shrugged carelessly. "Could ask somebody from the computer club. One of them'll be able to. Not really my thing – _I_ tend to use mine, not destroy it."

Across the table, Jenna frowned. "What's this?" she asked curiously, pushing herself into the conversation.

It was Jeremy who bothered to say, "Glore's gone and forgotten her password, can't get into her laptop."

"Will we need a specialist to get into the SSD, crack the password?" the woman wondered.

Mildred shrugged and said, "Guess so. Or just get someone to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows."

"What's Windows."

Cursing herself, Mildred hastened to correct, " _Panes_ – I meant Panes."

"Ah, okay," Jenna nodded. "John let me know you need a new cell, too. I definitely need a way to contact you while you're not here, so perhaps we can drive out to Roanoke tomorrow and get you one – there'll be more choice there. We could make a day of it?"

"Oh… Uh, actually, I kind of forgot to ask – I made plans with Caroline to go shopping tomorrow. That's okay, right?"

Fast coming up for thirty years of age in the real-world, Mildred had long ceased to ask people for permission to do things. It was easy to forget she was a teenager still under family care here and thus needed to clear things with her guardians.

"Does Caroline drive?"

Mildred shook her head. "Matt's going to take us. He said he'd pick us up from here at ten. I'm sorry I didn't ask."

Jenna just sighed. "It's fine – I'm glad to see you doing something with your friends, I suppose… Do you need money? I _was_ going to talk to you about the trust your parents left, actually, because you'll get it all next month."

"I...uh, I hadn't thought about it," Mildred admitted, echoing her own words from just a few minutes ago. And really she _hadn't_ thought about the inheritance surely left to Gloria Gilbert and her siblings. "I don't even know what..."

"The Lake House, for one – that's yours now. Twenty-thousand a year until you turn twenty-one, then you'll get the rest of your share."

That was... _very generous_. Just how loaded _were_ the Gilberts, anyways?

"And _this_ house?" she enquired curiously, though not caring much if it wasn't hers. "Who'd it go to?"

"Technically it's yours and Jeremy's though John's got the handle on it until you're both eighteen. The old Gilbert Mansion's his outright, of course."

Mildred frowned, not sure what the 'old Gilbert Mansion' was but decided it would look odd if she asked. Instead, she went with: "What about Mags? She's got a trust, yeah?"

"There _is_ one, yes, but...well, I think your parents mostly figured you and Jere would make sure she was okay. Her trust's small – just a back up in case, for some reason, neither of you guys can provide for her."

Jenna hadn't been to work the whole time Mildred had been here, and she wasn't sure what John's profession was. It was only just striking her now that she had no clue where the money in the Gilbert household came from. Grayson had been a doctor and Miranda seemed to have been some sort of artist who owned a gallery in town; both these pursuits looked to have served the Gilberts well – it was clear they weren't exactly strapped for cash. With no income, though, she didn't know how quickly any nest-egg might deplete.

Apparently gathering her thoughts from her expression, Jenna reassured, "There's nothing to worry about. Between what we've all been left, you've got nothing to worry about. I know you've never been materialistic, Glore, but we're well-off. You know how it is with Founding Families – fingers in enough pies to make any man morbidly obese."

Mildred nodded and went back to her desert.

"So do you?"

Blindsided, she groaned, "Do I _what_ , Jenna?"

"Do you need money for tomorrow? What're you looking to get?"

"Oh, uh, I could do with some new clothes, I guess. Everything feels...tight, constricting," she told Jenna, "just...not _me_ , anymore."

"Maybe it's not Uncle John who's getting _fat_ , Glore!" Jeremy butted in.

Mildred glowered at him. "Everything's from _before_ , and I just can't–"

"Hey, say no more – you're not the only one who looks at clothes and sees memories. I really ought to burn that Logan date-dress… If it's hurting you, buy a whole new wardrobe. Believe me, you don't need to worry about not being able to splurge a bit. And the phone, of course. I'll do some juggling in the accounts later, have a chat with John – I'm sure we can sort something out."

Right now, Mildred liked Jenna a whole lot more.

Back in her room, she considered filling out that form for early access to Facebook, and looking over the news stories from _the Ridgemont Times_ but decided she was feeling too emotionally exhausted to bother.

There were only so many surprises a person could deal with in one day, and learning most your country had been appropriated by various European nations was tiring. She also figured she needed to have a look across a world map soon, seeing as such drastic alterations to the borders of North America surely meant there must be even crazier differences in the rest of the world…

There was always tomorrow. She could face any further shocks after a good night's sleep.

 


	6. Mall of Broken Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, thousands of differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers governing the universe have very different plans for her life — she’s replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Mary Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: If she robbed a make-believe bank, would there be any consequences? She doesn’t know, but after the political-geographical surprises of yesterday she isn’t sure she wants to find out. What she does know is that this reality is a fugue, a crazy-train she can’t get off, and her sanity is slipping...

 

 

 

 

_june  
_ alterations found

 

 

**When she was a child she'd had a recurring dream that she was a bird,** a gleaming magpie hopping through the pink and orange blaze of the fall forest. Rain beat down on the trees, pushing its way through the overlapping leaves of the canopy to come to rest in patient little pools on the mossy ground. The rivers ran quick and overflowing, the air smelled cool and fresh. When she bounced out into the vibrant reds, hard yellows and shocking whites of Cranberry Meadow, she hopped her way through tall grasses until reaching the waterside. The lake always appeared a ballroom to her: Tiny invisible guests spinning, swaying, cutting in and out of one another – only visible by the ripples they left behind.

     Although the particulars differ, the dream she's having now is in the same vein.

                   She's not Gloria Gilbert,  
            trapped in a world she doesn't belong to.  
She's a bird clinging to a low branch in a sparse patch of trees.  
The sweet scent of blossom rises from rows of flowers below, and a pair of  
owls twit-twoo from some way off, wisely keeping their distance. It's misty and cool,  
like standing in the spray of a waterfall, thin rain rolling down her thick feathers and dripping  
off the descending flat of her tail. Colors aren't the same as when she's a girl: Grass is almost orange,  
clouds are dusted with pinks and purples, buildings are sharp-edged and mostly an uninviting, dull gray.

Though unsure how she knows, she's positive she isn't a magpie in this dream – her size is all  
wrong, her tail doesn't bob up and down, her feathers are lustrous but of darker blues  
and greens and charcoals. Usually her vision will flicker between the limited,  
through-the-eyes view of the creature she's emulating, and at the  
same time will pull back and out, soaring until she can see  
every ridge and air current of her environment.

   Tonight is different because she's so confined,  
                   caught within her body:

                           She _is_ a bird –  
              not a girl _dreaming_ she's a bird,  
and she can't break free of the restrictions of this form.

               Her claws are secure around the branch.  
           Head tilting,  
       she finds herself listening to the sounds of early morning commuters  
     shutting front doors and getting into their cars;  
  the wail of a fussy infant pierces through her fog,  
a caterwaul to the sensitive bones of her bird ears.

                She's not alone in her kind –  
           crows circle around her like a storm...or a murder.  
       She presides benevolently over the town square,  
   a queen holding court  
from within a flurry of black feathers and dissonant cawing.

                The crows speak to her in their way:  
   She hears them in an inconceivable manner she can't comprehend but understands all the same.

_What would you have us do?_  one squawks, a still figure in the tempest of its kin.

             A different crow – a sprightly tumbling one – enthuses, _We are to hunt the Shining One again?_

      She finds her head bobbing, though she has made no decision on how to respond before it happens.

_Observe from afar, cloak yourself in the shadows. Keep Shiny in sight – protect if you must_ , she charges them.

She feels a strong urge to keep something safe, to study it. There's an inquisitiveness and hope in her that even the  
cold and rain can't dampen. Too there's a determination to see something through to the end, a definitive deadline looming  
on the horizon – one which is a great comfort.

                                                                                                          Her crows depart, scattering to all corners of the town.

She herself flutters to a more sheltered spot, spending a precious few moments preening her unkempt feathers  
from beneath the safety of the local dive's overhang. In the alley below – all grainy black-gray  
concrete and weeds – she spots the bright white and lapis blue star of a  
dandelion. It's in her beak, sap bitter and dripping, before  
she knows why she's bothering.

                              (She doesn't need a reason –  
                       she does whatever she wants  
                   whenever she wants to do it.  
               She doesn't need a reason,  
        so it's certainly got nothing to  
   do with the idea _she_ likes the  
             bright little weeds.)

  The house is an easy flight on  
the conveniently northeasterly breeze.  
The colonial home is almost black to her eyes,  
and the hearts of four humans beat within: Two slow  
and steady in sleep, one at the speed of a healthy person  
at resting, and one which is rather fast and most probably belongs  
to the girl-child she has seen being brought in and out of the house on occasion.

She clings to the cladding nearly upside down – the flower dangling precariously from  
her beak – and peers through one of the upstairs windows. This is why she's here  
at all, in the end – it's her purpose.                                  
                                                                                            (It's _not_ her purpose,  
                                                                                         she's _way_ off-track...  
                                                                                     and she doesn't care  
                                                                                  because she can do  
_whatever_ she wants  
                                                                          without needing a  
                                                                      reason other than  
_fun_.)

A bedroom – a cacophony of strange colors:

          A sleeping girl, flesh drained of pink hues  
                                                                             
                                                                                 and dark freckles flecked across every inch of exposed skin

               wheat-gold hair with twists of lilac glowing wherever daylight touches  
  
     eyes frantic beneath their lids  
  
                                                         face scrunched up in confusion or concentration  
  
                breath speeding up and a rising heart rate to match

     and then-

She shot awake, sitting up so fast she practically fell off the bed. One of the pillows flung itself clear across the room; she must've been hugging it in her sleep. There was a loud rattle as the soft projectile smacked straight into her window, immediately followed by a startled rustling of feathers, a dismayed caw...and from the corner of her eye she saw a dark shape flap away.

"Sorry, bird," Mildred murmured tiredly, shoulders rigidly tense and the weight of her head hanging in her hands.

When checked, the digital display of the clock read _05:27_ in smug, shouty neon green. Half-five on a Saturday mornings...urgh, some events weren't even meant to exist, let alone be attended – before-nine on a weekend was the prime example of these.

The shower was particularly scalding this morning, the water only just having come off its heat cycle. Its close-to-boiling temperature filled the washroom up with clouds of steam – nacreous on the mirror, hot and moist in her lungs.

Hazy images of the town square blooming with fog and midnight-sky feathers began to turn in her mind

     faster and faster  
          wings and squawks

                         one conglomerative  
                                                             connected  
_collective_ mind  
                                 
                                trained on a watching     waiting task.

 

The clock tower's chime was echoing     bouncing back and forth off walls of her fog  
  


                 
               a sense of purpose and patience

                    of a starbusrt flower white and blue like her eyes

                         of semi-translucent flows of air above old houses  
                                                                                                        wending their way to–

_NO!  
STOP_

     she blinked     shook herself

 she was a girl  
not a bird

Yes, she was definitely a girl and not a bird. She didn't know how that was even in question.

Putting the odd feeling of duality out of mind, she set the bathroom window ajar. She saw it _was_ indeed misty out this morning – as her dreams predicted – and a billow of hot steam was sucked beyond the glass to mix with the cool outdoor air. It was just about dawn and thin rain spattered of the panes of the unlatched window, but there was no real wind to speak of which suggested there wasn't a storm coming in. Some of the climbing flowers (on this side of the house was a long stretch of trellis) had become little ponds, petals shivering and the leaves surrounding them lustrous with moisture. The fog-inside and the fog-outside coalesced, becoming inseparable from one another like a dream indecipherable from reality.

No matter who it might bother, she still sung in the shower.

The acoustics were a dichotomy of soft and rattling, enhancing and ruining her vocals at the same time. She'd discovered, after Jeremy's complaints over her lack of ability to carry a tune, that this body _could_ in fact sing but struggled to hit many high notes through lack of previous exercise. It turned out Gloria Gilbert would've had a nice voice if she'd ever bothered to _try_ properly, to stretch her vocal cords and attune her ear till she could actually _hear_ when she was off-base. Of course, it was possible her predecessor hadn't been able to correctly identify notes and chords Mildred had been picking out of songs her whole life. Musical ability was largely taught – a learned skill rather than an innate one.

So she strained her way through a mostly in-tune, if a bit weak, version of a number from Chicago, missing the days when she was an airy soprano. God, Gloria Gilbert's voice was annoyingly low and the reach to hit anything above – a very shaky and questionable – G4 was uncomfortable. On the plus side, with a bit of effort this body might be able to have a decent enough go at some Elvis tracks… If it weren't for the – delightfully so, after having a heaving chest since puberty in real-life – small, pert breasts and lack of penis, she'd think herself a man going by singing voice alone.

The hook stuck in her head, she was still humming _When You're Good to Momma_ as she slid into a seat next to Jenna in the dining room. There was already a stack of muffins and two cartons of orange juice on the table, safe to consume by virtue of not having been cooked by her aunt. The aforementioned woman had on a thick black jumper and a laptop was open in front of her – she tapped away furiously at the keyboard.

"You're up early this morning," Jenna said distractedly, not even looking up from her screen. "Muffins're blueberry, from M's yesterday – still taste alright."

Mildred _hmmm_ kayed and nodded, reaching for one. "Had a weird dream," she said in explanation of her early start.

"Yeah? Just _weird_ , not scary?"

" _Just_ weird, promise. No clowns, no midgets...just birds – lots of crows. It was very...Hitchcock."

"The one with the phonebox and all the birds, right? Well, can't say you haven't had worse dreams. Still, you could've gone back to sleep – not even six yet."

Pouring herself some juice, Mildred shrugged and said, "Didn't feel like it. Need to get ready to go out, anyways."

"You said you were leaving at nine, Gloria, that's plenty of time. I've been talking to John – he's spurted-" _Sorry, he's_ _ **what**_ _now?_ "–over enough for you to...well, get whatever you want, to be honest – seems he's in a generous mood. You'll be needing to stop in at the bank, though, to sign some paperwork to get things moving… It's your birthday in a couple of weeks."

"Uh, yeah, that's cool," she replied tentatively, wondering which bank her predecessor was even with. Oh God, even if she found out she had no idea what her pin was or anything...or her security questions...or what type of account she had…

"Glore? Gloria, you listening?" Jenna asked a bit testily. "You've spaced-out again."

"Huh, what? Sorry..."

"I said you need to take PPI – driving license, port papers or something. This inheritance stuff's big, they'll want it as official as possible."

"Yeah, but I'm still a minor – won't they need an adult there to set things rolling?"

"John's handled it on his end – bank knows you're coming. Uh–" the woman hammered her 'up' key "–here it is. You need to be at the Hadley and Barnes in Regency Square at three thirty. You should be able to make that – I'll be wanting you back here by nine, though. Weather's bad, don't want you driving at night."

"Matt's driving."

"I don't want you _passanging_ at _night_ in _the rain_ – there, that better?"

Mildred snorted, pointing out, "I don't think passanging's a word."

"Sure it is, I just used it in a sentence."

At quarter-till-ten Matt turned up sans Caroline. It was Mildred who answered the door, a bright feeling washing away any remnant eeriness from her unusual dream. The boy _did_ have a carboard tray of take-out coffee in his hands, three red and white cups with _Marcia's_ stamped on the side in navy; as he entered the house, Jenna darted forward with greedy hands, snatching one of the drinks.

"Hmmm...Caramel, yummy," she smiled after taking a sip of her purloined beverage. "I always thought you were good for Gloria, you know."

Mildred rolled her eyes, even as Matt pointed out, "You _would_ say that – you just stole her coffee."

Her aunt gave an unapologetic shrug. "No whining – you can get another. Not like I can just pop out with Magda upstairs. Way to a caffeine addict's heart is through gratuitous amounts of non-decaff hot beverages, _especially_ early in the morning."

"It's nine," the boy deadpanned.

"Early depends on when you got up – which in my case was five, so just ignore me..."

"Um...okay, _right_ ," Mildred stumbled, a little disturbed by the clearly familiar byplay between her predecessor's ex and aunt, "I'm just going to grab a sweater. Looks cold out."

"It is," Matt nodded, face screwed up in distaste. "June and real nasty – so much for global warming, eh?"

Huffing out a laugh, Mildred took the stairs two at a time. It didn't seem anyone else was up yet but actually she was wrong: When she passed through the bathroom she walked straight into Jeremy...wet and dripping, clearly halfway through getting out the shower. Honestly, what was a lock? She emitted a funny little squeak and span around, covering her face with her hands and praying for eyebleach. It wasn't that her brother was unattractive, it was more that seeing him naked, looking like he was getting ready to shoot for a Hotties of Mystic Falls calender, made her feel all sorts of dirty.

"Geez, sorry Jere!" she exclaimed, waiting for him to slam the door on her.

He didn't bother. "You can turn around, you know – I'm wearing a towel. Besides, it's not like you've not seen it all before a hundred times," he laughed, apparently finding her horror amusing.

"I don't think a towel qualifies as 'wearing', or is that–" she gestured at her brother's too-small, not-covering-enough red towel "–what passes for teen fashion these days?"

"You sound ancient, Glore. You're only two years older than me, how'd you manage to rival Mrs. Phelps for biddiness? You're not feeling an overwhelming urge to take up crochet, are you?"

"Hmmm, I don't know...I might be."

"Yeah, well, no knitting gazebos! I'm still having nightmares about the one from your princess party."

"No gazebos," she promised bemusedly, "and definitely no circus tents."

"Still creeped out by clowns, huh? You know, putting up a circus tent doesn't actually _create_ clowns."

"That's not a risk I want to take," she muttered with a theatrical shudder. "You need your laptop back?"

"Uh, yeah, if you're headed out that'd be good. Oh, and can you pick me up the new Rez disc from G8er? I've got a order ticket," he said, disappearing off into his room only to come back a few moments later in dark jeans – to her relief – holding a long strip of cream paper. Reading down the ticket, he glanced up and asked, "You're going to White Oak, right?"

"Regency Square," she corrected, parroting back what Jenna had told her earlier.

"Not much of a detour," he nodded thoughtfully. "Do you mind?"

She agreed to pick up Jeremy's game, and five minutes later she and Matt were pulling up at the cafe he must've bought the coffee from. When she pointed out to her friend she really didn't need a replacement drink, Matt cited long journeys they had previously taken and a whole lot of grumbling on Gloria's part about having nothing to drink.

"I _know_ you – you like to snack and you hate traveling," he complained fondly. "Just go get another – better than you changing your mind halfway to Richmond and getting all grumpy."

She acquiesced.

Marcia's had two floors and smelt absolutely _delicious_ ; the warm air carried a fragrance of freshly baked muffins and cookies, with the strong scent of coffee beans flooding over the top. Mildred's mouth watered when she caught sight of some of the pastries waiting behind the glass serving counter, and she suddenly felt like she hadn't eaten in years. There was a particularly lovely-looking slice of banoffee tart calling her name.

"See – _every time_ ," Matt gloated when he saw her reaction to the eatery. He scoffed, "Go out of town without stopping here first… Honestly, as if you'd ever be cool with that. Never known a girl to eat so many cream cakes and not put on a pound."

She narrowed her eyes at him and bit out, "Are you saying I'm a glutton?"

Startled by the venom in her voice, Matt threw up his hands in a show of peace. "No, no! Of course not! You just have a healthy love for...uh..."

" _Cream?"_

The boy reddened. "Uh _yeah_...sure, _that_."

Matt's embarrassment gave Mildred space to ask the barista for a chai latte and that decadent tart. It was as she waited for the order's fulfillment that she felt eyes on her, the hair on the back of her neck standing up in warning. Something felt out of place – like there was a gap in the world shifting somewhere behind her.

Her head turned, allowing her to surreptitiously scan the other customers in the cafe. There, at a small, secluded table in a corner, was one of the girls from high school: It was the dark-haired cheerleader Mildred had shown up in Mrs. Phelps' class. The girl stared at her through slanted, catlike eyes, displaying a level of loathing that couldn't be healthy. She had a laptop out in front of her and several notepads, indicating she was probably here finishing off some end-of-semester classwork (something Mildred had been avoiding herself).

Ruffled by the negative attention, Mildred distractedly collected her order from the young server whose nametag read _Sora Lin_.

Just as she was handing over a few dollars in change, the barista frowned. "You should probably talk to her."

Thrown, Mildred made a strangled noise of incomprehension. "Sorry, _what_?"

"Meredith. She's coming over – you should make up with her."

Wow, did everyone in this town really know _everyone_? It certainly seemed that way. Apparently, they also didn't have the good sense to stay out of things that were damn well none of their business.

Still, Mildred had no choice but to take the barista's unwanted advice, because the moment she turned around she was faced with the glaring brunette; the table in the corner of the room was empty now, so the girl had obviously packed up all of her stuff for this.

"Uh... _hi_ ," Mildred awkwardly greeted for want of something better to say. She shuffled her feet.

There was some great fortune that, in this world, she was rarely required to take point in conversations – if she left an opening then the chattery locals were almost always happy to fill it with something.

" _Hi?_ _That's_ all you've got to say to me?" the brunette asked irately. " _You've_ been ignoring me."

Put on the spot as she was, Mildred just ventured an 'I'm sorry' (and it came out more like a question than a statement). One of the jotters the dark-haired girl was clutching had a name on the front: Though upside down it clearly read _Meredith Sulez_ – the 'i' was dotted with a little loveheart. Other than having embarrassed her a bit during the Wuthering Heights discussion, did Mildred _know_ this girl?

"You _should_ be sorry," the girl bitched, hands on hips. "You have any idea what it's like? How would you like it if _your_ best-friend suddenly stopped talking to you, no rhyme no reason...and not even knowing what you've _done_ to deserve it?"

_Shit – Meredith...Meredith… Do I **know**_ _a Meredith?_

Mildred racked her brains, trying to place why the name was vaguely familiar. Having had a good look at her now, she thought perhaps the girl was in a few of Gloria's photos, and _maybe_ Matt had mentioned her once or twice? Best-friends, though? That didn't seem likely, considering they'd barely said a word to each other in the week she'd so far spent attending Richard C. Lee.

The girl was still rambling, unfortunately, clearly quite distressed. Finally, following a forlorn 'What _did_ I do?', she left Mildred a gap to respond.

"Sorry… I didn't mean to, uh, _blank_ you – I guess I've just been busy?"

Like her previous apology, her placatory excuses sounded more like queries than anything. She couldn't be bothered with this shit – if they were friends then why hadn't this girl sought her out _before_ now? Honestly – Cheer Girl really didn't seem worth wasting time on.

With a dubious nod, the girl – _Meredith_ , apparently – asked hopefully, "Well, can we catch up now?"

"Uh… Well, I'm– uh," she stalled, wondering how best to let the girl down. "I'm heading out of town with Matt right now – we're going shopping!" Mildred pretended to be more enthused by this than she actually was, then added for politeness' sake, "You could, uh, come with, if you like?"

Meredith's eyes lit up for a second, then her shoulders slumped down. "I wouldn't want to intrude on your date. We could always ca–"

"Uh, actually, Matt and I broke up – it's not a date."

Clearly, this was the _wrong_ thing to say.

"What do you mean you broke-up!" the girl exclaimed quite loudly, causing several heads to turn in their direction. Meredith flushed – as soon as people looked away again she began hissing. "You _broke_ -up and didn't even _tell me_? We're supposed to be _best-friends_ , Glory, so what the hell! And _why_ would you break-up? You're like the _It._ "

Keeping a cool head – actually feeling a lot more comfortable now _she_ was the one with all the answers – Mildred responded honestly, "I'm just not comfortable _being_ with someone at the moment. You know, with everything that's been going on, I need _me_ time."

The other girl obviously wasn't convinced, though she now let the subject drop. "Well, I guess I could come then… Where're you headed?"

"Richmond."

"Right...well, uh, just let me get a drink for the ride, then… Two secs."

Mildred shrugged as the brunette stepped around her, heading up to the serving counter.

"Um, are you totally sure this is a good idea?" Matt whispered, shifting from one foot to the other nervously. "Merry and Caroline in the same car? That's World War the Second waiting to happen."

Not having realized the two girls didn't get along, Mildred wondered, "Can't they behave just for a _day_?"

"I guess..." Matt didn't look though he thought it was likely.

Meredith returned clutching a saran-wrapped sandwich and a honey-hued drink that looked almost like chamomile but smelled far more...sweet _and_ savory, paradoxically.

"What _is_ that?" Mildred asked curiously. The girl didn't seem to get what she meant, so she clarified, "The drink."

"Oh, it's wild endive… Don't you remember introducing me? You said Ms. Fell recommended it for studying."

Seeing as she was a whole other person before the night of the accident, Mildred could say quite honestly that no, she didn't.

"Doesn't matter," she decided, checking the time on her cell. Turning to Matt, she pointed out, "We need to go pick up Care. Hope she doesn't mind cold coffee too mu–"

"I'm sorry – _wait_ , wait… _Care?_ As in _Caroline Forbes_?" Cheer Girl did _not_ sound happy.

Resigned, Mildred asked coolly, "Is that going to be a problem? 'Cause it's kind of all arranged."

"You see, this is the issue!" the dark-haired girl exclaimed angrily. "You've not been speaking to me, and when you _do_ want to do something together, you tell me stupid _Caroline's_ coming too. What happened to _us_? With Bonnie away, it's _me and you_ , but instead you've been ditching me for that _cow_."

Knowing there was nothing she could say right now that would help matters any, Mildred just huffed out, "She's my friend, okay? If you guys can't get along, then..."

"Then what? Then _we_ can't be friends anymore?"

"No, but…" Mildred began, then rethought it.

"Wait, no– _Yeah_ , actually – if you're both my friend, you're going to have to learn how to tolerate each other. I'm not going to cut someone out my life just because _you_ don't like them."

_After all, I know **her** but I've got no idea who **you** are._

"You didn't have a problem ignoring her before. What, did you get a screw knocked loose in the crash? I can't fucking believe you'd rather be friends with _her_."

Now, the accident and tragic death of the Gilbert parents didn't really affect Mildred that much – beyond a few really nasty memories she preferred to mostly block out – but she _knew_ Cheer Girl's comment was _way_ out of line. It was the perfect excuse to brush the girl off so she and Matt could get going. She glowered at the brunette darkly, while Matt took up the fight for her.

"That's _low_ , Merry," he warned. "How'd you like it if Ri spoke 'bout _your_ folks like that?"

The other girl was not pleased. "Yeah, _you do that_ – take _her_ side, like always. God, she breaks-up with you and you're _still_ following her around like a lost puppy. What a fucking _waste_."

Meredith stormed off, barely pausing to open the cafe door and almost causing a few accidents on her way. They watched her go, neither speaking until the girl was safely out of sight.

"Who pissed in _her_ cornflakes. Why's she need to be so nasty about it – I mean, it's only _Care_."

Beside her, Matt shrugged tightly. "No comment. I'm not going in on this one."

Mildred sighed. "Fine – thanks for sticking up for me, I guess. You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, well, much as I love a good hoedown, I didn't want to be held liable for destroying half of Marcia's."

She snorted and checked the time. "Nearly ten – we better get out of here before Care sends a search party...not that there's many places to search, town this size, but all the same..."

 

 

**Popping to White Oak turned out to be a real nuisance.**

After an hour being railed by the stiffs at the bank – clumsily signing line after dotted line with her assumed name – she'd had to overcome alternate-reality weirdness… Like accepting Nat King Cole types were apparently still the height of local musical flare, and trying to get over the fact a dollar _coin_ bore a portrait of some guy named Dennis Fischer.

It didn't help that, through this reel of shocks, she'd also been forced to allow Caroline to squeeze her into progressively more ridiculous outfits for the sake of friendship; after the disaster with Cheer Girl, she was willing to let Care do almost anything to her if it meant the blond was happy. Mildred had never really enjoyed shopping, per se, preferring to order all her clothes online and hope they fitted when they arrived. Though she could certainly appreciate her newfound ability to wear high-necked dressed – which would've previously made her look like a particularly frumpy, all-girls-boarding-school matron – the actual hassle of trying on dozens of things and being paraded in front of the dressing rooms for Matt's – bored and lackluster – opinion had been exceptionally tedious.

She and Caroline came away with more bags than they could reasonably carry around. Mildred was sure she'd bought a larger amount of clothing today than in over three or four years out in the real-world.

Over a lunch of blissfully normal, still-American KFC, Caroline had drawn her into excitable debate over what song they should perform at the town talent contest. It was unfortunate that Mildred quickly discovered she didn't know any of the tracks her bubbly friend suggested, and that in turn most of the tracks _she_ thought of didn't exist in this strange dream-place. Having few options that both existed here and didn't make her ears bleed, Mildred eventually started pondering the benefits of just choosing a real-life song and teaching it to Caroline before the show – it was that or be forced to perform one of the bizarro soft-rock/jazz mix songs that seemed to be popular here.

Determined to get up to speed on local pop-culture, Matt was very happy when Mildred lead them into Radio Shack.

More than just an electronic goods store, in this place Radio Shack seemed to have branched out until it was the largest retailer of computers, electric musical instruments and televisions. One side of the store was devoted to racks and racks of tiny little minidisc and albums and movies – for some reason the latter could be purchased on Betamax, too. Beyond the obvious oddity with the technology, she enjoyed searching out the most popular musical artists of the few decades, even if they _did_ all seem to be a little...stuck in the sixties.

The sheer scale of Radio Shack wasn't the only unusual thing to be found in Regency Square Mall: The stores either side and across from it were named Connexion Francaise, Primarket, Bald Eagle and Ikea Clothes. That last was particularly disturbing, making Mildred grateful when Caroline stuck her nose up as they passed, not deigning to go in.

Still, there was no Claire's Accessories, no Urban Outfitters, no North Face and no Republic. Instead she was presented with unknown stores like Carnie's Jewels, Boardwalk, the Columbia Company and Paradiso. All in all, shopping was a surreal experience even compared to the _weeks-long_ surreal episode she'd already been having.

It was...a relief, more than anything, to get back into Matt's beat-up truck and move on to White Oak. The sun was falling by the time G8er filled Jeremy's order for her, pushing over a title that looked to be about killing zombies in exchange for a cream twenty-five dollar bill daubed with an illustration of the Thirty-Third President of the United States (apparently _Ernest Hemingway_.)

It was during dinner at a conveniently placed and somewhat familiar restaurant, TFI Friday, that things really started to take a turn for the worse…

Mildred scanned down the menu, wiggling on the purple booth-seat in an attempt to get comfy. Usually she'd favor some kind of BBQ dish – perhaps something big enough to share if Caroline and Matt liked the same sorts of food – but she was having trouble locating anything like glazed ribs, smoky pulled pork, or a hog-roast sub on the menu.

The server was back with their drinks (heartbreakingly, the Coca Cola here was _not_ in anything but name), and her friends had already ordered their meals, by the time Mildred realized all her favorites were under a section – unappetizingly – titled _ROT GRILL_. She ordered something that didn't sound too dull – or like it would come half-decomposed – managing not to make an idiot out of herself in the process. Taking a sip of imitation-Coke, she settled into conversation, thinking all chances of calamity had passed for now. Disaster was a thing for morning papers, for coffee shops, long drives and the lunchtime foodcourt – now she could finally relax.

Or not so much.

It was halfway through their starter of saturated-fat-heaven stuffed potato skins – this body might be skinny now but at the rate she was going it wouldn't remain that way for long – that she first saw something wrong out the corner of her eye. In some way what she was seeing was awfully similar to what she'd _felt_ back in Marcia's, which she previously dismissed as having been the weight of Meredith's glaring.

It was a shadow to begin with: A tall, thin blot of darkness crossing the edge of her vision, cutting between the bright chain-lights and flashing brand signs adorning the restaurant's wood-cladded walls.

It caught her attention right away – every time she turned to focus on the offending patch of distorted air it would vanish like a mirage. It seemed to wax and wane, orbiting their central booth like a satellite, growing more pronounced and more faint depending on its position. Just like a moon, the closer it came the more it attracted her gaze; she felt some sympathy for the sea, being dragged back and forth on the whim of a capricious body it wanted nothing to do with.

After thirty cloudy minutes, too distracted to properly join in her friends' discussion about good starter cars for a new driver like Caroline, Mildred was almost shaking in her seat. Something cold and undeniably _wrong_ was crawling up her spine. She had eyes on her she couldn't identify the origin of – through the grass like a lioness stalking an impala, there was this... _thing_.

     This unknowable, impossible entity…

          This concept of nothingness     a shifting void where there should be normal dream-world  
  
                this prickly     heart-twisting     nauseating _feeling_ of wrongness churning up her spirit

                     Whatever it was, the very essence of it was that it defied quantification.

Caroline prodded her and said, "Keira always wanted the GM Cygna in green… I should get one for her sake."

Rattled, Mildred stuttered, "Uh, yeah, sure – that'd be nice – I'm sure she'd like that..."

"Nah, you can't get the Cygna for your first," Matt exclaimed from across the table. "It's a sports car!"

"And why can't I have a sports car?"

"Because...because it's too much power for you to handle!"

Caroline's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Just what are you saying? I can't handle a powerful ride? Just because _you_ struggle to keep anything more than a 50cc rustbucket on the road, doesn't mean _I_ have the same issue. Am I right, or am I right?" she asked irately, turning to Mildred for backup.

Hackles still raised, Mildred mumbled distractedly, "Totally… Uh, I have to pee – back in a minute."

The short journey to the restrooms was a disconcerting one. Her heels clacked loudly on the stone-flag floors, all other noise in the restaurant fading away until it was unnaturally silent. She was hypersensitive of her fellow diners as she passed, even though they all seemed normal; whatever was making her feel so skittish was not coming from any of them. It was close on her tail, chained to her wake, matching her step for step.

     She made it to the restroom.

Cold water splashed on her face, crazy-looking eyes, bloodshot, clammy cheeks and forehead.

     The taps were stiff. Or her hands were weaker than usual.

                    Spindly, shaking, gasping.

               Hands over face, _calm down_ , breathe breathe _breathe…_

There was nothing amiss amongst the restaurant's patrons, and the feeling – the shadow, the _void_ – hadn't entered the room with her.

It was all in her head, just like this whole damn world. She was in a make-believe place – a dream, a coma or something in real-life – and she shouldn't forget it. God, perhaps out in the real-world she was as crook as Rookwood: Crashing, heart out of rhythm, muscles convulsing, writhing in her hospital bed while people shouted code-blue. Doctors would be a rush of renetic movement about her body, trying to stabilize her heart and keep her clear of death just a little while longer…

Maybe the void was her subconscious' interpretation of the space where a steady _thum-thump thum-thump_ should be. The shadow was a doctor hovering over her… Or it was a specter coming to collect her soul because doctors couldn't save her – a _Supernatural_ -style Reaper or _Diskworld_ esque Death, there to soften the blow with platitudes and reason (a Reaper) or humor and small-caps (Death).

     Possibilities, possibilities…

          None of this was real.

Then, behind her shivering and shaking form, the void materialized…      _de_ materializing proper-space.

Trepidatiously she turned          slowly because, even though it prolonged the anticipatory horror, it meant she was still alive and whole for now…

There, before the row of cubicle doors, was the shadow haunting her. It was innately wrong, it didn't belong here or anywhere else. It couldn't belong because it was empty and full at once, occupying and not-occupying the same space other atoms should be, behaving like the proverbial gassy cat in a box. Splitting open the fabric of her dream, it mottled the air, a smattering of minute vacuums dancing through the restroom.

The darkness and lack of solid shape seemed to be caused by some sort of defensive action taken by her dream-world. It sounded like hundreds of thousands of tiny pops and cracks – like milk applied to ricecorn breakfast cereal, or someone on amphetamines really going to town on a roll of bubblewrap. Contained explosions, shadows and dark-light were the backlash of it having broken in here...where it shouldn't be…

This was _her_ head, damn it!     Interlopers weren't welcome – especially not ones flat-out destroying 'proper'-reality with their _wrongness_ , like some kind of _Nithling_.

     Here it was, though.

Impossible or not, it was here in her mind...and it was frightening. Being trapped in a dream-world was unsettling. The idea that, somewhere down the line, there was a strong chance emotionless-vampires might try to kill her was kind of scary. The thought she could be dying in the real-world wasn't very nice at all… But this void was the first thing since the accident that was actually managing to make her pulse thump and her stomach clench in complete and abject terror.

A long, twisting tendril of the black void stretched in her direction, ephemeral but corrosively causing a line of popping and smoking in the air before her. Mildred stepped back, pressed into the sinks. The questing, searching void came closer, almost touching her shoulder…

then she finally found her brain.

     She ducked and scooted sideways.

Hammering heart caught between her teeth, she made a break for it. By the time she hit the restroom door she was traveling at a sprint that, in her real-life body, would have caused her to inflict two black eyes upon herself even in a sports bra. Before the door swung shut behind her, she thought she hear a high, airy wheeze, interspersed with staticky crackle – it sounded a lot like 'Mil, wait up!' croaking out an antique radio.

On the restaurant floor, Matt and Caroline were still in the booth, chatting away unaware she was being chased by a nothingness-thing. They were turned away from her. She strode quickly down the aisle between tables, managing to get to TFI Friday's doors without causing a scene.

The air outside was delightfully cool, clearing her head and erasing the trapped feeling she'd had inside. There was no guarantee the Nithling wouldn't follow her out here, but at least she now had somewhere to run if it did.

Mildred sat herself down on the hood of Matt's truck, wondering how long it would be until her friends noticed she'd been in the restroom far too long and came searching for her. Squinting, she could just about make them out through the restaurant window; their heads were close together as they joked about, and she recalled that in the show the two of them had dated for a while. Perhaps they would get together here, too?

As minutes passed, she began to feel secure again…and, if she were honest, more than a little silly. The Nithling she'd run from probably hadn't even been real. It was more likely to be some sort of hallucination.

Though the brownish-A on Mildred's hand served to tell her she was definitely awake – or as awake as she could get these days – that didn't preclude the possibility of psychosis being the cause of terrifying, nightmarish monsters inserting themselves into her reality. If she _were_ in a coma-dream, then no matter how solid and mostly-logical everything around her seemed, sometimes her psyche was bound to throw some seriously heavy shit at her – and she just needed to deal. She couldn't go off on one every time she saw something weird – if she did _that_ then there was no way she'd survive the vampire/witch madness this TV show came with.

Not for the first time in the past week or so, she started to miss stupid things from her real-life:

Like Mr. Gibson, who was a total ass most the time but was at least someone she was familiar with and understood.

She missed her father whistly country songs as he worked in the outbuilding. She missed the sight of him donning his white, biohazardish bee keeper's suit, and the way he always referred to soft-boiled eggs as googs. She missed the way he insisted on cranking the heating up to eighty-odd degrees for half the year because apparently any temperature lower than that meant he'd turn into a snowman.

She missed how Lucy would drag her to that fancypants apartment of her's in Belmont, sit Mildred down in front of the TV with a plate of her best twice-fried and ketchup, and then proceed to pummel her with useless trivia about science-fiction shows for the next three hours. She missed how the girl wouldn't even stop talking once she'd fallen asleep sometimes, jarbling incoherently about her cat being a Slitheen and how angry sea-monsters were going to eat her longboat.

She even missed how her run-down, lazy mother would chuck shoes at her if she forgot to wipe the mud off them before coming into the house, while rudely complaining Mildred was wasting her life in acting and should get into an industry that actually appreciated her skills.

It turned out that cliched adage was correct: Absence really _did_ make the heart grow fonder. Yes her life had always been a struggle – and she never really achieved any of her childhood aspirations, or successfully formed long-lasting relationships with anybody but the geek-girl she'd been friends with since junior-high – but at least it had been _her own_. Being a make-believe person was stupid unless you were performing for an actual audience. She just went parading around as Elena/Gloria Gilbert, speaking with the girl's friend and family, living a stolen life – all the while, right at the back of her mind, Mildred hoped some day soon she'd wake up back in proper-reality.

     Like, _soon_ soon.

          Like, uh... _right now_.

Because the hair on the back of her neck was standing up like a thunderstorm was approaching, just the way it had in the restroom. Somehow, she didn't think it was caused by the cold.

She slid off the car's hood, a matching icy feeling slipping down her spine. It was okay – she was out in the open and wearing flattish shoes; if she needed to make a fast getaway then this body was athletic and coordinated enough to do it.

This Nithling – which was surely behind her again – wasn't around by chance. Seeing as it had followed her from the restaurant, Mildred was obviously the thing's intended target. So what if, like it's literary counterpart, it seemed to degrade all matter it came into contact with? She was sure she could do with losing a few potato-skin gained pounds anyway...and to be melted into a puddle of good like the Wicked Witch of the West..

Mildred didn't need to turn around to see the monster. The Nithling was coming about, putting the prickly feeling at her back to rest but lighting a flight or flight response in her legs. She had to run – it was too close, too dangerous. Firefly bright flashes swam across her vision, like a shooting-stars-indoors hallucination caused by acute sleep deprivation. There was a thin, swirling smoke billowing out from the void's base, pushing against the barely-there breeze of the night.

     Then she could see the Nithling in full.

Its edges were still indistinct but the black color of it now seemed more an _overlay_ covering slopes of near-white and a tall, willowy stripe of Beauxbatons-blue. Near the peak of the Nithling, there was a toss of bouncing red-gold that looked like curls...and a massive dragonfly was just visible atop the hazy nothingness, constructed of twisted gold wire and an array of vibrant gemstones.

Totally thrown, Mildred forgot the running part… The tension wound in her muscles just hung there, impotent, because she _knew_ that hair decoration. She'd seen it almost every day for near a decade out in the real-world; she even remembered watching it being made one dull Sunday a lifetime ago, under the illumination of flickering lights while a hurricane battered the coast.

Squinting to get a better look at the impossible Nithling, Mildred confusedly asked, "Lucy?"

The Nithling moved forward and, reflexively, a spooked Mildred took a couple of steps back. Most her fear was overridden by uncertainty and bewilderment at the sense of _familiarity_ suddenly coming off the previously fearsome void.

The thing's base was still obscured by tiny smoking explosions, so it wasn't clear if it was actually touching the concrete or whether it was simply floating through the air. If it had feet...then it may be a solid entity, more than an ephemeral terror capable of passing through walls and getting at her no matter where she hid. More than that, the dragonfly suggested this was somehow an awful, half-baked attempt of her psyche's to provide her with a friendly face – that perhaps, below the distorted matter and semi-strobing lights, was someone she desperately wanted to see.

Then, like mist parting indescribably, illogically, Lucy Sargent stepped out from behind – from within, above-below and around – the Nithling's form, emerging into the pre-sunset glow like an angel. It was suddenly as if the scary void had only been a riot of charcoal scribbled across reality, covering up the true, unthreatening watercolor beneath. Mildred's mind was filling in blanks with what she _wanted_ to see, there was no doubt about that – in all the time she'd been here she hadn't seen _one person_ from the real-world.

     It couldn't be Lucy.

       Except…

"You looks mighty fine, Mil," the once-Nithling announced softly, emotionally. "You been to the butchers – that looks like a right new nose you've gone and gotten yourself there."

Mildred was stuck in silent-mode, too surprised by the way things were unfolding to respond in any way that wasn't light vibration.

"New hair n'all – just when I was thinking you couldn't possibly get any _blonder_ ," Lucy wittered obnoxiously, obviously anxious to fill the quiet with _something_ to keep Mildred from running. "Always whistling show-tunes and humming those dull operas of yours, chatting about Academy Awards this and Golden Globes that, and now you've made it official – bleach-blond as a we–"

"Hey!" Mildred exclaimed, coming out of shock just in time to defend her honor. If this figment-Lucy was another part of her own subconscious, then it was a very rude and accurate one. "The color came with this body. Not my fault it's blond," she groused.

"Good to see you back with me there – thought I'd found some kind of mute fish-person instead of you, all the o-mouth you're giving me, or you just looking for a sausage?" Lucy's form flickered, reminding Mildred that despite her apparent existence, the woman _was not real_. "Come on, can't you least look a little glad to see me – I Oliviad across universes just to say 'hi', and all you can do is stare. Know I'm pretty fucking hot, but don't you think I rate a hug or nothing?"

"I, uh– uh..."

"Fine damn greeting, that is… Needn't've bothered putting myself out to get here, spose, if thatn's the type of welcome I've won myself. Still...here now, so might as well see if we can't get all this straightened out."

Lucy's always-teasing expression turned uncharacteristically serious, and Mildred wondered how she was even successfully imagining such an expression onto her friend's face.

"I need to know where you're at, Mil. Been using some hair of yourn to get a track on you, but it ain't a goodun. I've got me a few peeks in at you a couple of times but my Image is being heaps resistant – didn't like having her head messed about, went and scurried off elsewhere on this rock since the first time I did it. With no form, it's no small begging to guess where you've gotten yourself stuck – it's a big old multiverse out there."

Not knowing exactly what to say to this but understanding that what this faux-Lucy was asking her was about what sort of place her dream-world was, she contemplated what to do next. She could still run. She could have an emotional breakdown in the presence of her very best friend. She could decide perhaps some part of her subconscious was trying to get to grips with the ins and outs of her situation… Perhaps this image of her friend was the part of her psyche that wanted to help her, initially presenting itself as that Nithling monstrosity while it gained momentum? There was a chance some deep part of Mildred was trying to break free of Unreality, even though her main consciousness was fixed on simply surviving it.

"I… I'm stuck in the Vampire Diaries," Mildred eventually replied, not sure why another part of her own psyche wouldn't know that already.

With an eyebrow raised humorously, Lucy asked, "Oh yeah, which one?"

As if that was a question that made much sense – after all, there was only one _Vampire Diaries_ , right?

"I– I don't understand. You know, the Vampire Diaries – that trashy vampire show like to go on about so much. None of those 'musical numbers' you laugh at – no high-notes just a whole load of high-strung teenagers with paradoxical god-slash-inferiority complexes."

"And who're you starring as, hun? You must be right in the thick of it for you to've identified this b-side as somewhere somewhat familiar. So...from the hair and perky skirt–" she gustured up and down Mildred's borrowed body "–I'm gonna guess we've got ourselves a Cazza right here in the flesh – should've pegged her as your counterpart from the starting gun – girl's got more bubbly than a foam-party with champagne on tap."

Still quite befuddled by what was going on, she could only shake her head and reply, "Apparently I'm Gloria Gilbert."

"You're a sister of Elena?" Lucy snorted. "Mary Sueing a bit there, aren't you? ...Course, Elena has sisters in most the b-sides – she's even got herself a twinny in at least four I can think of off the top… But if she's always the doppelganger and her sisters're mostly the normal folks, you've just gone and made your girl way more special than she can ever hope to be anywhen else."

Hands on hips, her redheaded friend aggravatedly continued, "Still, this don't narrow it down much – there's at least five or six worlds that match up close enough to this story. What year's it for you? That ought to give me a better idea of how far off you are."

Thinking it an odd question, she answered anyway because this whole encounter was odder than anything that had come in the last few weeks – and that was saying something. "It's two-thousand six – June, if it matters."

"You'll be comfortingly close by, then. If I'm remembering my lessons right, b-sides six to sixteen're similar enough to've got events matching close to VD. Course, there're plenty of worlds with Gilberts and Forbes' and a Mystic Falls...but not much supernaturally-type stuff. Not all world's're partying enough magic for that kinda stuff. You actually _seen_ any vampires?"

"I don't know!" Mildred exclaimed, irked by not-Lucy's rambling.

"How can you not know?" Lucy half-shouted back, wearing a mixed expression of desperation and annoyance.

"I don't know – I just _don't_! When I woke up in fucking crazypants la-la land, I wasn't exactly asking everyone I came across if they were an undead, blood-consuming violation of sensible-nature! I was a bit preoccupied with the issue of _I seem to've gone troppo_!"

"Alright, I'll give you that," her friend conceded gregariously. "Still, let's put this in a way your mental breakdown can figure..." Speaking very slowly and over-enunciating, as if to someone very stupid, Lucy asked, "Have you seen any characters who are vampires on VD? Not Viki – that don't count seeing as the nut weren't no vamp to start with. But proper, young for half-a-dozen decades, honest-to-god _vampires_?"

After a moment, Mildred admitted, "Well, if it was real then I saw Damon right when I started dreaming. Does that matter?"

"Tells me you ain't in a low-magic b-side – wouldn't be any vamps if you were. And you're with the Gilberts and folks so it's not gonna be fifteen to nine." Lucy had totally lost her again. "Narrows it down..." Giving her a shrewd, speculative look that was bolstered by amusement, the woman asked, "You glomped him, didn't you?"

"Narrows _what_ down, you crazy B? And of _course_ I did – it was _my_ fucking dream, there was no reason not to! God dammit, I don't understand what the hell you're going on about… _I'm_ in a coma-place, _you're_ a figment of my fucking nutso imagination! ...So I'm basically confused at – and arguing _with_ – _myself_!"

Mildred's breathing got quite heavy as resurging panic set in. Her situation as a whole was brought into sharp detail by the fact what she'd just shouted at Lucy was the god's honest truth. How she must look to anyone else in the parking-lot…

She laughed incredulously now – and possibly manically. "Oh God...I'm fucking crazy...completely off the reservation… Fuck fuck fuck! Can't even win an argument against _me_."

Heart too fast, Mildred sensed the energized, not-right presence of fake-Lucy coming closer. Her friend's body left an afterimage in the air as if she were moving at great speed. Something compassionate in the woman's clear brown eyes made Mildred flinch away.

Lucy stepped right up to her, sporting a frown.

"It's important you be understanding this ain't no dream… But I'm gonna work out exactly where you are, Mil. Swear I'm not just gonna leave you here. I'm coming for you," Lucy promised.

In a strangled voice, Mildred begged, "Don't you try to tell me this is all going to be fine. I'm hurt somewhere, out in the real world – I just know it. And my cuckoo for cocoa-puffs brain's gone and shoved me in some kind of non-place where there are only twenty-one states and Ernest Hemingway was _President_..."

     Lucy's arms came up and wrapped around her kindly, encasing Mildred in…

          well, definitely not comfort:

      It was sudden – mostly faster than she could process.

           Not-a-Nithling Lucy had her in a cocoon on reduced-oxygen air     in something which wasn't quite a void in the literal sense  
                                                                                                                           but came far too close for continued health

      Flashburns leaped onto her clothes     sizzled up her arms          the smell of burnt keratin filling her nostrils

           Dizziness became the world

       She drunkenly tried to get her bearings  
                                                                          her breath came out as smoke and heat searing through–

                          nothing

                     –and then        F  
                                          L  
                                         I  
                                         G  
                                           H  
                                           T


	7. A Dubious Return to Normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: In dream-world she is a god, and he’d do well to not forget it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know what to say about this, other than if I have to look at it any longer I might give up the will to live. If you don't have a pretty wide screen, the formatting'll end up buggered even by *my* standards. If not, there's always the FFnet version which is far more sane...if a bit boring in comparison. As ever, I apologise for this and all future posts I make.

 

 

 

_june_  
a dubious return to normalcy

 

 

                      One moment she's in the parking lot sporting a  
                      nervous twitch, all but rocking, arguing with a terrifying –  
                      but accurate, awfully familiar figment of her imagination and...  
                      well, basically behaving like an escapee from a mental institution.

                      The next the world is immolating, she's insufflating superheated air, limbs  
                      aren't working and the hair on her arms has already sizzled down to the skin.

                      Then she's hovering on the blessedly cool wind, her wings tucked in as she speeds  
                      through the sky like a bullet. She races over orange fields, pink-treed parks and narrow  
                      strips of grubby concrete.

                             She's in a hurry.  
                       
                       It's been too many minutes since she'd gotten a nonsensical alert from her courtiers. 

_The world is wrong inside,_  

                                         they'd said, their duty spying on – who they called – the Shining One.

_Danger beyond... Danger!_

                       And so the southeasterly became her grace, puffing up her feathers and pitching her at an unnatural  
                       angle as she rushes headfirst into whatever 'danger' there is. The Shining One is important, needs to be  
                       watched and understood and, for now, protected. From the emptiness of over a century of swift-shifting  
                       yet unchanging life, there's come a desperation to her, an overpowering need to get back to the one  
                       who made her what she is.

                       Love is love and obsession is _twisted_ and _consuming,_

                            _yet..._

                              From circles of bright crops, watered by rotating metal arms, a town grows beneath. Within  
                       moments she's over it, shifting east and no longer with the wind; she battles against the  
                  yellowish haze of the main air-current, progress slower than she's comfortable with.

_Fire and nothing_ , her fellow crows murmur, spiralling ribbons of thought crossing the air  
She can feel them storming something, attacking something that would harm  
that she needs to shelter (to keep safe for no other reason than...   
a puzzle, a mystery, a curiosity not yet satiated)

She shoots over the winding river cutting the town in half,  
coming closer closer _closer_. The white bright sun is  
down now, last light lingering over the radiant  
sea – that great, sparkling ocean that  
marks out the edge of the world

_and so she_  
                           
                    dive   
                            dive   
                                    dives.

       Streetlamps rise in ovation to meet her,  
            her obedient court circles below,  
                      cawing discontent.

  
                       She hovers level  
   
                        descends soberly down  
                                                     down  
                                                     down, until her hard,  
                       taloned feet meet with unforgiving steel.  
  
She settles onto the crown of a light-pole, observing the scene below.  
      This is what she sees:

                                                _Fire without flame._

                                               _A expanding and contracting cloud of claws and feathers,_ battlecry caws  
                                       echoing high up into the air, waves of distorted air-currents and disjointed,  
                                   crowish cackles gliding in and out of one another.

                            _Smoke rising from the heart of the attacking crows,_ yes, but thin and wispy  
                       like a mist. It floats out unnoticed by human eyes, pushing against the wind.

              _The scent of burning flesh,_ too fresh to appeal to the way a scavenger like her  
           usually consumes its meat.

   A column of her subjects are trying to take some _thing_ nasty down. Shiny's a few  
feet away, sprawled in a pile flat-back on the concrete, clearly unconscious, and  
there is a disturbance in all that is _norma_ l and _sane_.

                                                        _This is wrong._

She's seen _many_ unusual things in her long years, but even of all the things she has  
witnessed that are greater than the human world, never has she seen or felt something  
like this. The whole area seems to be caught in some kind of bubble of high-pressure; the  
air feels stifled, unnaturally hot and still, improbably to have occurred naturally seeing as her  
activities the last few days have left cooler, rainy weather a hundred-miles out from Mystic Falls  
in every direction.

Something nearby – many minute somethings, darn and impossible and  _glowing_ , bounded by sunlight   
– are eviscerating all feathers loosed from her crows in the fight, and the flesh of Shiny's arms is  
_bubbling_ up like overheated plastic or a side of pork cooked too fast at too high a temperature.

_Danger outside air, breeze unsettled,_ her crows announce as one, their voices merging  
together from all around.                                                     
_It is what is not,_ they riddle.

What makes sense is that Shiny is dying, unconscious in this dirty parking lot with an ailing  
heart. It is more than time overdue to intervene, even over the sea surely now the sun must  
be gone.

                                                                                                                            _Blood is power  
__and blood is life..._

                                                                       Puffed up breast, feet spinning around the pole  
                                                      slipping upside-down. Feathers shifting and transforming  
                                           through the drop to the ground. Her legs lengthen in a moment  
                               an instant stretched out only to a brain capable of supernaturally-fast  
               critical-thought. Hollow bone becomes weighty, wingtips become the pads of  
  fingers and nails and flesh and skin and—

                                                            _black  
  
_

the scent of skin became smoke and sharp     fiery pain where nerves were dying.

                           The taste of spice and oranges and copper.

     Thick, sluggish down her throat     ice rushed through her    

                    coating veins and capillaries     seeping into overheated muscle     soothing and softening swelling.

  Blown out above     overly bright     yellow-orange light in and out of focus

     the hum of electricity stuttering through her surroundings

          pinprick-echoes like stars sparkled in a blanket of darkness.

     Disorientation

          head lolling     turned to the side.

               Rough concrete     small stones dug into her cheek

                        a _surge_ of foreign energy lent strength to the very heart of her.

 

Mildred sat up gingerly, head pounding with her pulse. She felt confused and invigorated, had a power running through her limbs no mere human was usually afforded. A spot of blue above her – two spots of blue, on and off, set below a haze of dark, above shadow-cast lips. The world was spinning a bit but everything cleared as a familiar – if out of place – face came into focus scant inches from her own.

"Damon?" she groaned in confusion, voice coming out far weaker than her body felt.

For at least the second time today, she was utterly blindsided.

Where was the not-Lucy thing?

Where had Damon come from? Surely he hadn't been stalking her creepy-Edward stylie? But if he hadn't been, then how would he have known she was in trouble? And...even if he knew she was in danger, burning up in the grasp of that Nithling wearing her best-friend's face, why would he care at all? It seemed, judging from the fact her flesh wasn't melted as it should surely be, he had healed her. Why, though? She wasn't Catherine – he knew that.

He helped her to her feet with one hand, supporting all her weight effortlessly. Despite his aid, Damon's face was turned away from her, peering out into the darkness. To him, Mildred supposed, the night probably wasn't that dark at all. If Nithling-Lucy was still around then he would likely see it.

When nearly an entire minute had passed without progress, Mildred cleared her throat – there was a thick residue coating her esophagus that she rather thought might be vampire blood – and spoke again: "What are you doing here, Damon?"

His attention snapped to her fast enough to cause whiplash. "I see you remember my name… Well, I guess I _am_ pretty unforgettable," he quipped evasively, avoiding the question. His voice was as deep and pleasant as she recalled from their meeting on the road. Something in his eyes, though, was tense.

"Just answer," she stupidly demanded.

When a few more seconds passed without response, Mildred huffed, removing her arm from his too-tight grip. She was, at this moment, pressed shoulder to shoulder with a being capable of ripping her head from her shoulders faster than she could blink.

"I was in the neighborhood – looked like you could do with a hand," he eventually surmised. Eyebrows raised, he asked lightly, "Was I wrong?"

"Very. Everything's hunky-dory out here – spectacular, even..."

"Right – and I suppose you just came down with a nasty case of spontaneous combustion," he drawled sarcastically. "Sort of thing happens all the time – the conspiracies are true – perfectly normal, nothing to worry over."

Had he not seen the Nithling?

He mustn't have...yet...why was he scanning their surroundings for a threat if he hadn't? The parking lot was deserted but for them and it's native wildlife – there were cars and crows, nothing else.

Spontaneous combustion, though? So he'd seen her burns, he'd dealt with them… So… Oh God, he'd know she knew he was a vampire, that he'd fed her blood to heal her. It would probably best that he wasn't aware that _she_ was aware of his nature just yet.

Trying to look as confused as possible – these days, an easy emotion to put forth given how often she was genuinely flabbergasted – she looked down at her arms. They were still hairless but now her skin was unimpaired – they were salon-smooth, in fact. She actually looked a bit healthier than before.

"But… I was burned – I know I was!" Mildred exclaimed, playing the sentence in such a way he'd easily be able to head off this train of inquiry with a bit of gentle gaslighting.

"You don't look burned – must've just been a menopausal-flush," he suggested flippantly, eyes sparkling. He laid the back of his hand to her forehead, adding mock-thoughtfully, "Though you're definitely very hot."

It was all going very well, all things considered, until she said the dumbest, most idiotic thing ever. In a bright, clear voice, she accepted his assessment of her hotness, and assured, "Don't worry, that's just the syphilis."

A beat.

Two beats.

Then Damon burst into raucous laughter, his whole body shaking and face lighting up. She wasn't entirely certain whether he was laughing at her or _with_ her, but his exuberance was infectious and she found herself sniggering. What in the world had possessed her to say that?

"Ah, Milly," he sighed, wiping a fake tear, "I like you – you're _funny_."

"As funny as syphilis?"

"As funny as syphilis," he agreed sagely. "Besides the goop-brain STI, how're you feeling?"

Mildred shrugged, glancing at first her feet then the vampire side-on. With a little more prompting she declared, "Honestly? A bit like Snuffy the Seal."

Damon raised a brow again. It was like a default go-to for him or something.

"You know – that commercial where they're about to release a rehabilitated seal back into the wild," she elaborated, catching his unspoken question. "Then just before they can, a shark leaps out the water and eats poor Snuffy right off the winch."

The vampire offered her a very wide, toothy grin. "Do I _look_ like a shark to you?"

"Uh, yeah – lil' bit."

His smile turned sinister. "Are you afraid I might eat you all up, little red?"

That was a good question – was she scared of him? Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. She hadn't found herself with an overabundance of self-preservation since that first night on the road; to be honest, she'd never had much common sense even in real-life. Prudence was for prudes, as Lucy loved to point out.

She was saved from answering, thankfully, by a relieved sounding Caroline bursting into the conversation. Matt and the blond girl must have finished eating – how long had the Nithling encounter even taken?

"Gloria, here you are! We've been looking for you for aaaages," Caroline announced only a little testily. Matt trailed in her wake but seemed to relax at the sight of Mildred well and unharmed. "What are you doing out here? You missed dessert – that's _so_ not like you."

Oh, she'd only said she was going to the restroom...right… It felt like a lifetime ago. She ought to have just told them she was going to wait by the car.

"I– I'll pay you back for my part of the bill," Mildred quickly offered, feeling a bit bad for bailing on her this-world friends. Not _too_ bad, though, because she _had_ been being chased by some kind of antimatter monster/hallucination. "I didn't mean to make you worry – it was just so stuffy in there," she explained, trying to look as contritely pathetic as possible.

Somehow, Damon managed to fade into the background. It was like Matt and Caroline's eyes just swept over him as if he were a shadow. Like a perception-filter, or something. It was a neat trick, Mildred supposed, if you wanted to be a spy or a cat burglar.

"Don't worry about the bill, silly," Caroline told her sweetly, "my treat you know. We just thought you might've broken your neck slipping on a wet floor, or drowned in the toilet." Then the blond threw her hands up over her mouth. "Oh, God, I didn't mean–" she stuttered, eyes wide, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say _drowned_. God, I'm such an idiot sometimes!"

"Uh, Care," Matt inserted calmly, laying a hand on the girl's shoulder, "now would probably be a good time to stop talking."

Had Mildred ever mentioned how much she loved Matt? If not, consider it true-love forever because the boy had a surprisingly good sense of social timing for a slightly-dense jock. While Tyler was brash and largely childish, screwing about in lessons and generally getting on everyone's nerves, Matt was a more gentle soul and as cool as the proverbial cucumber most the time.

With one possible crisis averted, however, another rose from behind it. Or, more accurately, from behind _her_. Damon chose this moment to step into the light behind her and, rather intimately, place his right hand on her waist.

"And who are these, pet?" he asked politely, though she could feel the tension humming through his chest.

"Oh, uh...right. This is Caroline–" she pointed in the direction of her perky friend, then gestured to the far more stoic boy beside her "–and Matt. They were just finishing dinner...at TFI's," she concluded lamely, for want of something better to say.

It was strange he might feel either of her very human friends was a threat; then again, Nithling-Lucy hadn't looked like much until she nearly seared Mildred's skin off. Or Damon was merely being possessive, perhaps, wanting his Catherine-doppelganger all to himself? His warm hand – thumb stroking circles in the hollow of her hip – certainly felt possessive, like a snarling wolf protecting its next kill.

Caroline did an eyebrow thing that would surely endear her to the vampire, who was the obvious King of Eyebrows. "And _who_ is this?" she asked pointedly, the question loaded in such a way Mildred just knew she would be demanded to spill all on the way back to Mystic Falls.

"Guys, this is Damon. He's..."

"Just passing through," Damon finished smoothly, a predatory smile audible in his voice. There was a cold undercurrent when he clarified, "Saw my Gloria here in the parking lot all alone – just had to say 'hi'."

Caroline let out a slightly strained giggle, looking nervous. Apparently the girl was even brighter than previously assumed; she could clearly sense the weight of the vampire's presence no he'd revealed himself.

Why had Damon gone from reassuringly personable to frighteningly frosty, so dangerous sounding, though?

Then it hit her. It was a name thing.

He'd caught how Caroline called her by what people here knew her as. When Mildred introduced herself on the road – right at the beginning of this impossible dream – it was with her normal, real-world name.

Startled by her own dawning understanding, Mildred span around and looked up at the centuries-old man with frantic eyes. He thought she'd been lying to him before and, for some reason, that really didn't sit well with her. Not to mention lying to this guy was liable to get you killed; she seemed to remember something about Elena going along with her boyfriend's betrayal of him at some point, and getting a mouthful of vamp blood and almost a snapped neck for her duplicity (served her right, of course).

"No– Damon, I can explain," she hurriedly swore, wanting to smooth things over with him before he got any bad ideas. It was easy for her to justify this need by thinking about how deadly it would be to be on the outs with an immortal, possibly amoral, killing machine.

He didn't give her much chance, though. He brushed off her words with a simple, "There's nothing to explain, Milly. It's time for you to go."

This was the last thing she needed, to be controlled in the type of dream-place she was used to controlling.

Caught by the fierceness of his gaze, she didn't manage to close her eyes in time to stop him. His pupils contracted as far as they could as he dictated, "You will get into your car and head straight home – do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars."

He continued to speak. Her head felt murky, his voice lulling her. So close to him, even in the half-light she could see that, despite the good likeness he had for his character, on the show, he didn't look precisely the same down in the details. Just as she could be a devastatingly iron deficient, fun-house-mirror Dobrevganger – or maybe she saw that just because she was _looking_ for it – who'd picked a fight with a bottle of hair bleach, he could _almost_ be his tubular alter-ego's double but for a few things that didn't right true: The otherworldly olive-but-pale of his skin; the underlying rainbow glint in his hair, illuminated semi-orange by the light pole, like the sheen of a blackbird or magpie's feathers; or the odd sea-blue eyes, faint lines crossing their irises like broken ice on a frozen lake. This close up it seemed readily apparent he wasn't human – she didn't know how anybody could miss it.

By this point, he was cheerfully – if thoroughly alarmingly – reminding her, "I'll be back to see you on your birthday, just like we planned." Then firmly, "But you _won't_ remember seeing me tonight."

"I won't remember seeing you tonight," Mildred agreed, nodding servilely. Just enough of herself broke through to cheekily/spitefully add, "You're _very_ forgettable."

The three of them were standing around Matt's car aimlessly. It wasn't precisely cold but nor was it remarkably warm – Mildred hadn't thought to bring a coat.

"Urgh, I think we should head home, guys," she suggested, wrapping her arms around herself as she shivered slightly. She had goosebumps on her arms, though the fine hair there that should warm here was absent; it had been melted away when not-Lucy touched her. Clambering into the car, she recalled, "Jenna wanted me back before the 'storm' hit – not that it looks like there'll be one – so we best not make any stops on the way."

"Sure thing, Ri," Matt accepted easily. "No table dancing for you tonight."

"Awww," Caroline whined, "but it's so much fun when she dances. All we need is a couple of beers and some Softly hits, and she's all set. Total lightweight," the girl singsonged, seeming in high spirits.

After an exhausting day of shopping, Mildred wasn't sure how anyone could be so cheerful. She supposed that she just didn't have the energy or personality to do the literal shop-till-you-drop thing and come away alive. Actually, she was feeling quite sleepy, and the D2 thrum of the engine, the gentle vibration of the car sliding over the recently-tarmacked highway, was extremely relaxing. She could almost just…

"Hey, hey," came a female whisper, "you need to wake up now."

The truck's interior light was blinding, even through her half-closed lids. She could see the blurred lines of her own eyelashes with each failure to break through the grogginess of having been woken up at a poor moment in her sleep-cycle. What was going on? The car wasn't moving and cold night air made her curl in o n herself to preserve whatever warmth she had. Did they break down on the road?

"We're home," Caroline told her. "Well, at mine, but near enough."

This set off an anti-fun alarm in her head. "What about about Jenna?" she asked woozily. "I'm not supposed to be out late. Got to go home. No stop offs on the way."

"We already called your aunt. She's cool with you staying here."

"Here...yes, that's good. Live here now," Mildred murmured confusedly.

Quite pleased with the prospect of not moving, she navigated through her seatbelt until she could comfortably lie along the backseat, then promptly began to drift out of consciousness again. It wasn't the most wonderful place she'd ever slept – sure beat getting up, though.

Caroline made an aggravated huffing noise. "No, not _here_ here. You've got to get out the car. Nice bed upstairs, yeah?"

Mildred didn't move, her only reply a snorting sort of breath she would, had she the energy, deny being kin to a snore.

There was a new sound that was possibly her frustrated friend stomping a foot; it sounded like click-clacky boots on a concrete-slabbed sidewalk. "Matt!" the girl nearly-called in a seething whisper, "I can't get her up."

Another voice – male and presumably Matt – chortled. "Wake Ri after just an hour – that's your mistake right there. Don't worry, I'll carry her... Not like it's the first time."

Very nearly dreaming, Mildred was gently manhandled into strong arms; the scent of pine cradled her carefully. Movement, the soft rolling motion of the sea surging up shallow steps, the sound of a bunch of gulls rattling, then a surrounding warmth as a door closed on the coast, locking the ocean out. She roused a little.

"Mine's third on the right," something said randomly.

Mildred's chivalrous chauffeur carefully ascended another set of stairs; these ones must have been quite steep, for the ride was joltier than before and the few creeks that met her ears were so deep and heavy that it sounded like there was a great chasm below. Unceremoniously, something soft was at her back now – she felt worryingly exposed, doing number-seventeen: the spread eagle. Her shoes slipped away, followed by – after some humming and hawing close by – her pantyhose; she hoped the latter hadn't torn themselves in the haste to get away from her. A soft, thick sheet climbed haphazardly up her legs to drape itself across her; pleased by the fabric's clear desire to be her friend, she turned and snuggled into it.

She could hear voices echoing up from the chasm.

"She's out like the dead. I got her out her shoes and...um, stocking things, but I left the rest for you."

"That's cool. Though, out her hose? That's _all_ , I hope – not very gentlemanly to sneak peeks at your ex when she's passed out."

"Nothing like that, I swear!"

A feminine giggle. "Don't worry, I know you're a nice boy really."

Mildred's eyes tried to open. An out of focus and unfamiliar ceiling came into view. Her whole body was dead weight, as sometimes happened when she woke in the middle of the night' unlike on those rare occasions, this heaviness wasn't a complete inability to use any voluntary muscle (something which lead to the horrible, unsettling sensation of being unable to breathe until the paralysis subsided). She supposed she was just very tired, though some recent memory of jostling had caused her brain to become somewhat more alert.

The first thing she found herself wondering on was the scary encounter with not-Lucy – the irritating column antimatter – in the White Oak parking lot.

As far as wish-fulfilment hallucinations went, the horrific vision of her best-friend insinuating itself into her dream-world had been as annoying as disconcerting. Consistently speaking round in increasingly insane circles – check; going on about stuff that didn't make any sense as if Mildred should understand perfectly well – check; acting generally like she had all the secrets of the universe and could think her way out a triple-deadlock-sealed box given the right incentive (real-Lucy's phrasing once upon a time, not Mildred's) – double check. Basically, the vision had been very accurate to Lucy's character but extremely frustrating all the same...and, you know, way more burny than her friend had ever been in real-life (despite the woman's multiple incidents of burn-the-bastard-ex's-stuff).

She resolved not to think about the possible-insanity clawing away at the inside of her skull. It was late, she was running on fumes, dwelling on it wouldn't do much good right now; she'd be better off crashing out and taking each new came as it flew at her. Perhaps, luck willing, the hallucination had been a one-off occurrence induced by stress? ( _Shopping_ stress?) Or maybe – as she'd speculated several times in past days – she really was in a coma and the vision of Lucy was part of real-reality bleeding through, just how it had in that djinn-induced hallucinatory-reality (hallucinality?) Dean got trapped in that time.

The main light in the room flickered off, leaving her in darkness, practically cowering beneath the powder-blue comforter as if could be used to contain whatever vestiges of sense and reason remained to her. She heard Caroline pottering in the bathroom down the hall, brushing her teeth and muttering to herself. Mildred tried her hardest to drift back off to sleep.

Reprieve from her thoughts doesn't come, though.

Instead she just stare-stare-stares up at the yellowing light pouring through the blanket over her –  
green through the fabric – wondering how on Earth life's grown so strange she's no longer capable  
of identifying what's real and whatnot.

Perhaps she sealed her own fate a long time ago...  
  
She remembers how her parents – in a rare show of family togetherness – once took her to the theater  
in New York.  On the drive home, she'd declared she wanted to be able to pretend to be someone else  
and have others believe it, just how the stage actors could. Perhaps over a decade of walk-on parts in  
second-rate soap operas, toothpaste commercials, travelling junior school productions, nicely rounded  
off with a questionable-at-best lead in a Boston theater that smelled far more like mildew than success,  
has finally broken her mind.

         Whatever the reason, nothing is what it seems. The Nithling is proof enough of that.

                 Mildred has to remind herself this mantra when the walls start dripping.

The paint near the ceiling seems to grow wet and weighty, darkening almost sickeningly as it pours it's  
way down the still-cerise parts of the wall like molasses. Crimson molasses, blood seeping from raw wounds.  
The grain of the floorboards shifts and ripples like the wavy, alive lines on the display of Lucy's old oscilloscope;  
the floor's become murky water and Gloria's fluffy rug is flotsam drifting atop it. The mirror above her predecessor's  
desk reflects an image of her real-life bedroom, her messy two-room above the Salvador Deli in Roxbury.

                                                                                                  The bed becomes an island of normalcy in a pocket of weird.

                     If there's a sure sign of the truth she really is living in some kind of unreality, then _this_ is it.

Though she used to always be more than willing to play a bit in an odd scene like this, Mildred's had a trying couple of weeks  
and really just wants to get to sleep. She's not sure why this extended-dream's suddenly starting to behave like one, just  
that right now she doesn't want anything to do with it. So she squeezes her eyes tight shut in a renewed attempt to  
reach unconsciousness, thereby gaining some kind of relief from all the crazy thrust upon her... Turning her  
pillow over and pushing deeper down into it, like a child pressing into its mother's bosom, she ignores  
the sound of a fast-running river whooshing below the bed.

     Except it's not really the cool side of the pillow she's greeted with.

It's flesh dressed in slippery silk, firm where it should be soft and far too _frigid_ to be healthy.  
Tentatively opening her eyes a crack, she finds there a girl with flushed skin, as if  
sunburned from head to toe. It's definitely another person in the bed.

     She panics at not being alone anymore, her own skin growing clammy  
     with fear. In a dream anyone can be anywhere at any time. Lucy was in the  
     parking lot.

                                                    Mildred pulls back sharply from the body half-beneath her.

The other blond's head flops over like she's in repose so serene she can't be roused – not by shouting  
or shoving. The woman's chest isn't rising and falling, though, and her unnaturally-pink limbs are askance,  
as if she'd been tossing and turning in her sleep – fighting something off – before giving up in total enervation.

Though Mildred's never actually seen a corpse up close before, the completely-inanimate nature of the blond's stillness  
suggests she's no longer of the living.

Mildred's all too familiar with the woman's sun-blond hair curls roughly, trying to escape her head, and the dark green  
chemise rucked up her ruddy, exposed legs.

It's _her_ hair, her nightdress, and—

                                                            a shimmer crosses the bedspread,  
                                                             cotton and silk the color of coffee  
                                                             blooming across the cheerful pink  
                                                            -blue polka-dots of Gloria's covers

                                                                          — _her_ bedding.

                     God, this is _her_ bed.

It's the bed she and her father shacked together when he had a free weekend.  
They'd half-assed it out of apple crates and driftwood. This is its exact copy right  
down to the seashells hot-glued to the reclaimed-lumber headboard and the knots  
of Christmas lights lurking under the slats. These lights are glowing far more coldly,  
clinically than they ever did in the real-world; they pierce through their sturdy  
crate housing as if it's paper, a creepy, latent glow bouncing off the  
water-for-floorboards surrounding the bed.

                     Almost too disturbed to function—

                            because dreams and reality have  
                            been one and the same for a long  
                            time now, and when that happens  
                            nightmares aren't just adrenaline  
                            fun anymore, they can hurt of kill

                                                                       —Mildred leans forward on her knees, reaching out for the woman's corpse.  
            Praying to something she doesn't really believe in     praying that she's _wrong_      
                        she closes her eyes and tugs on the body's shoulder, rolling it over.

                                           Her eyes reopen slowly, her heart completely stilled.  
                                                                        Instantly, they lock on her own.

                                                                                 _The corpse is Mildred._

                                      _Real_ -Mildred.  
                                                               Twenty-seven with frizzy hair  
                                       eyes closer to an overcast sky than blue.  
                                     Her lips are the same scalded color as  
                                   her skin, slightly parted in death, and  
                                 her sclera is a decaying, gone-off  
                                                              yellow-gray.

                          _It's arresting fear._  
                       The kind of horrified  
                    shock where you can't  
                even exhale, because if you  
            do everything might come crashing  
                  _down_  
              ar _o_ und you  
                         _w_  
                             _n_  
  
    if you _do_ you might _break_ in an irreparable way.

A foreign breeze ruffles her real-life corpse's hair, and  
the skin at Mildred's nape prickles.

**_Well, this is delightfully morbid_ ,** a voice chimes from  
somewhere above her bed, slanting across her psyche  
                                            like it wants to dissect her.

                     Damon is lurking by the open window.

Startled out her lock-up,  
Mildred shrieks in surprise.  
Only her mouth isn't open;  
the pitchy whistle note  
echoes klaxon-loud   
through her _bones_  
and the _bed_ and  
_the whole damn world,_  
                     deafening her.  
  
She scrambles back frantically,  
putting as much distance as she  
can between herself and the man,  
because she doe—

                      _She tumbles backward,_  
hitting water with a tremendous splash.

     Her head goes straight under, freezing  
               her brain like too much ice-cream  
            consumed too fast, and destroying all  
      higher-thought. Everything is frenetic –   
     muscles clenching, legs furiously beating  
against the river-current, reaching for the surface.  
The water's fucking Arctic and disgusting, and she's  
weighed down by folds and folds  
                        of sopping cloth, and she can't escape it.

Something grabs at her ankle. Long, strong fingers dragging  
            her down into a horror-movie-set of a vehicle. Twisted,  
                 deteriorating metal and an unnaturally powerful grip.

    Elena's father doesn't look good in death, and neither does her  
   mother. The two of them have blued, bloating faces and malice in  
their partially-decomposed eyes. They speak at her without words, yet  
their message is clear:

_You did this. You  knew what would happen — you should have saved us._

Her own mind protests, locked in an epic battle for oxygen. She kicks and  
scrambles, _I didn't know, I didn't know. How could I know?_ in the same  
                                                  non-verbal way they had spoken. _  
                                                                                                                I didn't   _  
                                              _know_  
_it_ _was_  
_real  
  
  
_

Out of place, Mildred finds herself speculating this must've been what it was like for Regulus to drown in a lake of Inferi.

                                                                            _What is reality?_

                                                          It's nothing more or less than the evidence of a person's senses. It's electrical signals  
                                                             travelling from nerve to brain, interpreted by the most intelligent natural computer  
                                                                  evolution has ever spawned. It is close to memory, and therefore to time;  
                                                                      everything is perceives microseconds after it has passed. It is  
                                                                          subjective, put together slightly differently by each person, and  
                                                                              sometimes it isn't even noetic...  
  
                                                                                                        _Often_ not noetic, in Mildred's case.

  
For the second time in a month, she is drowning; this is what her senses tell her.  
There's zero-degree water binding her arms and legs, clenching around her chest,  
which paradoxically feels steadily warmer as each second without oxygen passes.  
Her hair's swimming away, floating out sort of like a macabre halo, and catches on  
the semi-disintegrated edges of the rustbucket car she is trapped in...     and every  
time she thinks she might get away, might rise to the surface of this awful scene to  
a place where there is at least air, something tugs her back down...inviting her to  
            spend the night sleeping on the mottled, mouldy backseat of the vehicle.

She's so tired, life's been so strange and taxing... It almost seems worth dying  
just to get a bit of rest. She's not really ready, in her heart, to succumb...but is  
resigned to doing so anyway.  
                                                                                                                                     
Then, breaking through the water above her like glorious sunlight, a large hand      
              descends through the grime and debris, taking a tight hold on her elbow.  
                                                                                                                   
Reinvigorated, kicking out blindly at the Gilbert parents, when a second hand appears she _leaps_  for it.

A rush of water skates down her body as she's pulled from the unholy torrent; one moment she's drowning  
at the behest of Miranda and Grayson, the next she's emerging up up up until her feet are hovering several  
inches from the surface below. She's dry almost instantly, and her lungs loosen at the first gasp of fresh air.

Her eyes flicker up to gaze into the face of her savior. Strong arms holding her snug to his chest, she's  
surprised to see Damon's still haunting her subconscious. It's odd, she hasn't really thought about him  
much since the night they met out on the road before the accident. At this moment, though, she can't  
recall having ever been happier to see somebody in her life.

  He puts her down slowly, almost reluctantly.  
_**Second time today**_ , his resigned sigh says. _**I should charge.**_

  As if he possesses a supernatural control over the physical world, the water has returned to being plain  
   wooden floorboards. when she hesitantly looks around, she finds everything else remains twisted, like a  
 sketch of a hellish realm where up is not up and down is left. There's a brown, gritty residue marking out a  
waterline along the walls, and everything below it is coated in sand and silt and bits of glass. From the floor  
  to the bed, to the now-drenched corpse of her real-life self – unmoved from before, but it's freakishly pink  
  flesh now caked in grime – nothing has survived the impromptu flood her subconscious turmoil caused.

Why did this place have to choose now to start behaving like a normal dream? Why couldn't it have  
been fluid and mutable when she still had the wherewithal to escape it.

         Damon's in front of her, immobile but for his eyes; they dart about the room like dragonflies,  
      taking in the devastation, and it all feels very...familiar. Like a dream half-forgotten. This man  
    looking for threats, ready to protect if needs must.

_This'll be hell to clean up_ , her mind laments.

                His eyes snap back to her as if he heard her thought:   
**_Which part — the inconvenient flood or the inconvenient corpse?_**

       It's confusing and not, somehow both things running together.  
   Damon's now staring at the body on the bed. He approaches it,  
                     observes it closely as if trying to discern its identity,  
                          then nudges it with his knee.

                                        It crumbles _dissembles_

                                                                        like it had  
                                     been a carefully painted shell,  
                          delicate and all filled up with ashes.  
                    Like a traditional Easter Egg, yolk  
              and white blown out a small hole  
        with a straw, so fragile when decorated.  
Like that episode of Fringe with the cosmonaut  
    and the metaphysical entity; like a whole frickin  
         person can be blown from the world by no more  
              than a desk fan. Like a hollow puzzle of a being  
                   who can no longer exist.

     In many ways, it was better when the corpse was still there.  
Now it's just a metaphor, and a chilling one which shakes the  
foundations of everything she's ever known. Before it was a  
  body and now it's a dusty imprint on someone else's bed.

           Everything she was is gone as if it had never been,  
                    and it's irreversible     unchangeable      _definite_  
                                                                                  concrete  
                                                                                _absolute_

                                       _**Thesaurus**_ **,** comes a low chime.

                  _Dinosaur called Thea,_ her mind spews randomly.   
    Then, on the back of that pointlessness, she has a bit of a  
   breakdown, though one far smaller than John and the kitchen.

There's no obvious answer to how Mildred goes from staring at  
the foul stain on the bed, to being enfolded in the arms of a man  
she knows by no more than a name, some rumours, and a kiss –  
mind you, _a damn good kiss._

_**Not so bad yourself.**_

Tears run so fast she could almost literally cry herself a river...  
Which, considering Damon just deleted one from existence  
for her, would be counterproductive. There doesn—

                       WAIT! – – –             
_– – – REWIND_ _  
__  
  
_

He removed a whole _river_ from her reality...

                                                                         How could he do that?

                                                                                                                  _Unless..._

Mildred looks down at where a small, brown-ink 'A' is daubed on the webbing between her  
right thumb and index finger. Question overcomes distress: is she awake or is she dreaming?  
Working out which state is which used to be second nature to her; since the night of the accident  
                  she can't necessarily tell anymore. Considering the circumstances, that's no surprise, but...

                           All the same, it is a—

Wait...no, she's asking the wrong question here. What it should be is: is she dreaming, or is she double-dreaming?

                                 What's the last thing she did?

                                         Fell asleep in the car. Matt carried her upstairs. Took of her clothes—

         a low growl shakes the room

                                                 —so she wouldn't overheat in the night. Her friends spoke  
                                                      downstairs. She thought about Lucy, Caroline brushed  
                                                       her teeth and came to bed and—

                                                                                                            Turned the light off.

                                                     Caroline had turned the light off before going into the bathroom.  
                                                 For that matter, this is _Gloria's_ bedroom not her friend's; she isn't even  
                                             at her own house tonight, so how can she be in her usual bedroom? It's not  
                                       like Damon could have snuck into Caroline's, spirited her out her friend's bed, only  
                                   to take her back to the Gilbert house... And even if that _is_ what happened, she strongly  
                                        suspects he wouldn't turn the light on, because little unsettles a victim more than  
                                            being hunted through an impenetrable cloak of darkness.

                                                  So why is she at home?  
                                                                                                                why's it so bright in here?

                                                                                                                            _Damn it all_    
                                                            she _is_ double-dreaming... A dream _within_ a dream.

                                                                         Talk about cliches and masochism.  
                                                                          She's fucking _Inception_ ing herself

With the understanding the corpse wasn't real, none of this is reality in any way shape or form, she smiles. Her head pulls  
back from Damon's chest, though he doesn't stop rocking her. This is a truly proper dream-world, not the anemic, unmalleable  
dream-lite she's become used to since waking up in the hospital. She can bend her surroundings to her will.

                                                                                   Her soul psyches her up with a sure whisper:               _I am a god._

Damon's _everything_ chuckles irreverently. It's a familiar cadence, though she isn't sure why it should be – she's never  
                                heard him laugh before. He isn't mocking her supposed hubris for long, she makes sure of that.

   Gloria's bedroom slips away, like it was a fabric backdrop and the rope holding it up has been cut. This is a set  
                                                                             she designs – she is the architect...or, at least, her memory is.

         A haze of her life swirls around them in a tornadoish mirage.  
   Music comes, mid-notes breaking bright colors across the ground,  
       high-notes scattering pale points of light across a dusky sky,  
low-notes painting the ground below maroon and navy and forest-green.

                          The bedrock is slightly bouncy.  
Each of her steps – so much greater than normal gravity would allow – set a rhythm to this nightmare-unwritten.  
  
Mildred lets out a peal of delighted laughter. Finally this is her place, the sort of palace of imagination she's been unable  
to build since the accident.

Damon, possibly her own creation or possibly having invaded her mind, is bemused. She can feel it welling up from below her feet.

                                        It's little fun to dance alone, though...

                           So Mildred undoes him with a kiss. It's not amorous but barely there – it's questing, searching, _pushing_.  
                            She slips between cracks of Catherine and chaos, Stefan and sanguinity and instability, Mildred, madness  
                                                                                                                                                    and miraculous impossibility...

                               She lets herself fall into his mind.

                                    New places start to flow around them. Places she's never been as they were  
                                                                                              during decades she wasn't even alive.

                                        _Blood was always life_  
_but blood became power_

                           the din of an Elvis concert – screaming fans and air thick with the pulse of blood.  
                             mini-skirts and fresh sound and dark, dirty corners for darker, dirtier deeds—

                                              _when painted red_  
_was the white flower_

                                      the view from the top of Everest. icy chill and wind, and so far far far  
                                        to above everything that truly _this_ is the roof of the world. So high  
                                         her problems can't have come with her, ghosts would turn back  
                                          ...except they _didn't_ —

                                           a yacht's teak-deck tilted at a worrying angle as it turns into  
                                        a breaking wave. the taste of salt and sweat and the rocking  
                                                                                    that's more than the ocean's pull—

                                               _alone there in the darkness_  
_how it bloomed_

                                               a dark, smoky hotel room occupied by three scantily clad  
                                              women. a bad day and a worse night, and a century behind  
                                                        there's an even worse night still waiting to be forgotten—

                                                  _while shadows grim_  
_encased_  
_its fellow tombs_

                                                       a lakeshore and a moue of deep regret. utter despair  
                                                        and there's just no reason to go on in this, a world  
                                                            crueller than the creatures that stalk through it—

                                                              _what was a dream by day_  
_forsook the sun_

                                                            a dirigible puffing out little balls of smoke over  
                                                          vibrant grasslands. a rare moment of peace, soon  
                                                                           to be shattered as all such moments are—

                                                        _and cares of the heart_  
_were at last undone_

                                                 a comet bright bright bright in the cloudless daytime sky. to  
                                              come again, one day when the seasons have turned over over  
                                      over one another until they dizzy and the cosmos is perfectly aligned—

                                                      It's too fast     _too_ tumbling.

                                        His mind is moving too fast to get a fix on anything.

                                                                                   _ **STOP!**  
  
_

                            Her command takes hold of the world instantly. The spinning ceases,  
                         the haze of psychedelic images dissipating, clearing away to be replaced by insubstantial  
                       swirls of foggy, gray nothingness. Not the same sort of nothingness Lucy tried to sunder her  
                      with, more the graveyard obfuscation seen in b-rate horror flicks.

                    Sprouting like briars, brown tangles of color wrap around themselves until layer upon layer of  
                   brick-like shapes are formed. Piece by piece, a builds itself. Dead grass punches up from an  
                  indistinct, whitish plane of ground, followed by sad-looking flowers, jagged gravel paths and  
                 forlorn, unkempt hedges. The sky above is nuclear-holocaust green and stars twinkle too  
                clearly for noon; the weathered sundial standing a few feet away claims it's midday.

             Nothing looks very...pleasant, or even realistic.  
             Yet... She knows this place, has seen it before: It's the old Salvatore estate,   
              now overgrown and all but gone; only forest and foundations – proudly displayed   
               in the school library – and photographs remain as evidence it ever existed at all. In this   
                scene, the buildings and gardens still stand, clear from overrunning flora and fauna, but it is  
               ...somewhat eerie. It's the way the light is cold and everything feels dead.

                     Of course, it's also just a little bit beautiful, in that strange way the ruins of something  
                       once-glorious can make you feel sad and content at the same time.

                    _No.    Not here **.**_

                       It's hard to say which one of them feels that.  
                        The thought is clipped and low, burrowing under the ground and making shuddery, shivering  
                         children of each grass blade, open-mawed mosters of each thorned, twisted rosebush.   
                          A river, murky as the one from her own nightmare, cuts through the back of the   
                           property, and she wonders if it had been there in reality or if it is her own   
                            import, a manifestation of her fears in his psyche; perhaps, if tired   
                             and frightened enough, she would bring a freight train   
                              through the house like a regular Cobb.

                              The willow trees beside the water are bare,   
                               spidery branches arching up to a peak  
                              before falling limply like they ought.   
                            They lack the silver leaves that   
                          make willows so attractive.

                     When she was a child, playing on the shore of Cranberry Pond, the willows were like  
                 a haven to her – a place to hide and, blissfully alone, be found. The underneath of the  
              great trees were like a whole other world, hidden from the real one by a curtain of  
        leaves.

  If a willow is bare, however, it offers no protection, no escape or reprieve.

Why is it that in this dream-place of his the willows are bare? All the other trees at least  
have – curled up and dry – fragile skeleton leaves the color of rust.

                                                                                 _**You can't hide from yourself...**_

     This time she knows the understanding is her own. Mildred has never been able to  
        hide from herself, either, even when pretending so desperately to be someone   
          else. Out in the waking world she is small, emotionally crippled and mostly   
             gliding listlessly through life. Does she intend to squander her dreams  
              doing just the same?       

                          How much of this will she even remember in the morning?  
                        Any catharsis will be swept away with her waking to the other  
                      dream-world, where people would think it weird if she asked them  
                    to call her Mildred, and even stranger that she's so far gone she can't  
                 even recall the names of her 'parents' half the time. She doesn't know who  
              she is, she doesn't know where she is or what she should be doing...but by god,  
                            _She knows how to dream_.             She's an armchair expert on this one.

               So screw the dying trees and the scent of tuberose rising from the ground; no  
             decay, no corpse-flowers to rain misery down on her parade. This is her show,  
           opening night, and if she wants she can fly. Not as a bird, because she doesn't  
         want to be a bird again...

      she wants to be a girl,  
                  long limbs and heavy hair, spinning      up into the air  
                                                                          up  
                                                                       up                   **I'm a leaf on the wind**    
                                                                                          **I'm a leaf on the wind**  
  
 **a leaf on the wind**

                                                                                                                  Her mind chants, desperate to be  
                                                                                                                  not weightless, per se, but this thing  
                                                                                                                  of joy that's scarcely affected by gravity  
                                                                                                                  or logic.

                                                                                                                           She's been such before and she  
                                                                                               will be it again – a life in Unreality can't take this  
                                                                                            one pleasure from her, it cannot take her dreams.

                                            **I'm a leaf on the wind     I'm a leaf on the wind     I'm a leaf on the wind..**.........

         Wait, no, that's not the best take-off mantra,  
         because the last time a guy went with that he ended  
         up with a big pole through his chest and broke the hearts   
         of even the douchiest critics. If anyone in this dream got a spear   
         of wood through them... well, then they'd _die —_ immortality be _damned_.

                      Damon rears back,  
                      eyes flash threateningly  
                      flicker with...is that fear,  
                                        _uncertainty_?

       She's freaked him out. Quite an achievement.

_You know_ , is his statement.  
_You can't know, howcanyou know? _

Suspicion resounds through the gardens of the old Salvatore Mansion,  
followed by shuddering growls of        
_What are you? How are you doing this?_

             The man comes at her with vampire speed.  
                               
       She flickers and disappears before he can catch her, re-solidifying behind him.  
            _ **Over here...**   _ her mind sings tauntingly, drunk on the power of this mind-place. 

                   If blood is power then dreams are a power greater.

                                      It's a game of cat and mouse, thrilling in its execution.  
 Her voice is thrown around     hiding amongst the hedges     rattling off the house's many windows.  
     
    Her body can be incorporeal because she wills it to be so.

        Ideas and desires and wishes act as traps, slowing him down.

             With each difficulty he faces, Damon's determination to get at her only seems to grow.  
                So, though, does his dawning horror and disbelief.  
                  This is _his_ mind-place, after all, and she strong enough to be the one pulling its strings.  
                     For all he knows she could rewrite him from in here.

_what are you?_  
                             he demands again      
                                 the words boil up from the very pit of his soul.

_**The architect**  
_                                                             she says.

She perches herself on the edge of the sundail and he takes a step in her direction,   
probably lead by the few traces her movements leave upon his psyche. It's _his_ mind,   
after all.... Nobody can walk in another's world without imprinting themselves there.

She lets him get quite close, her toes curling into the verdant, dandelion-bedecked grass  
spreading out in a circle around her. Here, in this place of him, everything is dead but she  
herself and that she touches.

In contrast to the blooming, smoothly unfolding swathes of color she brings to the landscape   
she's in direct contact with, the places Damon treads are even fouler than the rest of the   
garden. It may be to do with how he perceives himself in the privacy of his own mind,   
but the ground below him isn't merely a drought-stricken yellowish brown but caked   
with something dark and thick that she thinks must be blood. He is leaving a trail of   
destruction through the dreamscape, just as he tends to leave in the waking-world.

When he is so close to Mildred that she can feel his breath, angry and humid, stirring   
the air, all that is physical about her – which, in this place, is to say nothing – blows away.   
So much smoke spreading between an idea of atoms as the Lucy-Nithling had in TFI's bathroom.   
Her all performs an evasive, acrobatic move to the circumference the Salvatore Estate.   
Like ash, parts of her coat the windows and the tiles of the roof, settles on   
flowers and deadened grass, and the time on the sundial spasms   
and shifts until it reads thirteen minutes since two.

  Damon's expression is frustrated and furious.

Giggle high and haunting – ephemeral like that of a creepy, disembodied child in a cheesy   
horror-flick – Mildred is less tangible than even an idea of a leaf on the wind can be.

Cheshire cat grin hanging amongst the sickly green sky and pulsating stars –  
her presence hovers just on the edges of his mind, skittering away each  
time he tries to get a proper fix on her.

_You think you're clever, hiding from me in my own head_ —  
_but out there..._

       The threat hangs unfinished.  
    Anger and wonderment collide.

  It's his and hers both...  
and resurging is his desperate, _delirious_ need to know:  
_  
__What are you?_

                  One last jibe – mystery – before she withdraws into her own mind, leaving his free and unfettered.  
                   (She doesn't want to be trapped here – one layer of Cloudland's enough, thank you very much.)  
  
            A tinkling laugh – one so much more like the woman she used to be than the girl she has become again.  
  
    A golden dress, shining like the sun, and a blinding halo that's big enough to encompass the whole sky.

      Fifty foot tall now, and grinning like a loon,  
       she asks,  _ **Weren't you listening the first time?**_ ** _  
  
_**                              Everything rushes away,  
                                      so many ideas like sand  
                                                slipping through the  
                                             fingers of her mind,  
                                    and her parting line  
                             echoes dramatically  
                       into him in a way  
                   that greatly  
               pleases  
                    her  
                       theatrical  
                               nature:

                                          ** _...I'm a GOD._**


	8. To Lazy Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: With the day comes perspective. At least, enough perspective to realize having pissed off a deadly, capricious vampire puts not only her in danger, but the new family she’s come to care about.

 

 

  
_june_  
to lazy days

 

 

 **Mildred woke** **feeling rather stupid.**

Well, no, that wasn't fair… She woke feeling – initially at least – invigorated and cheerful. Her sunniness, matching the gloriously bright day outside, faded whilst she was in the shower; it dissipated somewhere between the chorus of _Build Me Up, Buttercup_ and the moment that tune managed to morph itself into _Here Come the Hotstepper_ (the latter of which she could only blame on a nineties childhood and the former of which she really had no excuse for). By the time she'd hit her fourth round of _na-nanana-nanana_ s she was practically _slamming_ her forehead against the tiles, despairing over her actions in last night's dream, wondering what on earth had possessed her to act the way she had.

Oh God… Thanks to her rampant idiocy, Damon now _knew_ that _she knew_ he was a vampire. She'd all but spelled it out last night while prodding around in his head. What, in the name of all that was holy, made her do _that_?

Taking some time to think over what had actually happened, she realized that was just it: She'd _thought_ something incriminating...and he'd just _heard_. She wasn't even sure how that worked – it wasn't as if she'd ever _shared_ a dream before… In the real-world such things were completely impossible.

On reflection, Mildred wasn't even positive Damon had really _been_ there, or if he'd just been part of the landscape of her dream. People she knew often showed up in her dreams, whether she'd been thinking on them recently or not. There was no way to be sure the vampire had actually been there but... Well, the way he'd responded to her apparent knowledge of his _otherness_ was enough to make her suspect he had been. If it had been her dream alone…then, firstly she couldn't imagine why she would choose Damon as her savior from the Gilbert parents, or secondly, how she would be able to form the Old Salvatore Estate in such great detail for their ill-advised game of hide-and-go-seek.

The final question (whether _or not_ Damon had really been there and therefore knew _she knew_ ) was if any of it even mattered…

Since she'd 'woken up' in the hospital, this philosophical wondering had taken her a few times, making her mind bend and her eyes bleed. As far as she was concerned this whole 'reality' was a dream; therefore, did anything that happened here really matter? When she finally woke up for real, none of the things she experienced here would have occurred at all. Was there any point worrying about things done while in Unreality? After all, what happens in Vegas (... will probably haunt you for the rest of your life).

The thing was, for the duration of her time here this _was_ her reality. Until she worked out how to wake up back in the real-world, anything that happened here – even if not technically real – would continue to affect her. If Damon decided to come after her… Yeah, no matter this place's lack of genuine realness, it would probably still hurt like a bitch if he _did_. Pain was pain, whether you were properly conscious or not.

If Damon...or a car, or a stray javelin – it really didn't matter what… It was just...if anything killed her while she was in this dream, would she die in real-life? Or would she just wake up in the hospital, Lucy and Dad fretting at her bedside?

Natural instinct was to stay alive. That in mind, she hadn't felt like testing the 'you wake up if you die' concept. It had certainly been true in past, normal dreams she'd had but this situation felt different by far; Mildred had no urge to go jump off the clocktower just to check a theory. After all, if she was wrong then dead was _dead_.

Pressing her face against Caroline's fugged mirror, her thoughts settled into a series of _why me_ s on eternal repeat. Actually trying to work out the problem of reality and unreality and what was real when you were in the latter…it became too much, Mildred's mind posing the same questions again and again, getting back answers that were almost exactly the same – but not quite – each time. It was circuitous and painful...and, for the most part, it was fucking pointless.

 _This_ was her reality for now. She needed to go with it as she had been these last weeks. Pretending it wasn't happening, that it didn't _feel_ real to her, wouldn't do any good. Tomorrow she could go out and use her very poor driving skills to wrap a some poor schmuck's car around a tree… All she would probably achieve is a lot of broken limbs and an agonizing recovery period at best. And outright death at worst.

So it was a subdued, again-exhausted Mildred who inhaled two bowls of Caroline's most hipster cereal, half hoping she'd choke on a chunk of quinoa and be spared the hard decision of whether or not she should try killing herself to see if she woke up in the real-world.

It was already nearly midday, meaning she'd been asleep for an uncharacteristically long time. Neither of the Forbes women were anywhere to be seen; the elder was probably at work and the younger must've stepped out for groceries or something… There wasn't anything edible in the house that didn't come in a box and thoroughly deserve to be drowned in milk. Apparently, Sherrif Liz wasn't big on good housekeeping. It was not as if the home were dirty or messy – because it _wasn't_ , though Mildred suspected that was more Care's doing than her mother's – it was more that the house felt empty, bereft somehow. It was _too_ clean, too perfect, too _unused_.

Mildred washed her cereal bowl straight after finishing breakfast, feeling like she'd be messing up the house's innate neatness if she didn't. It wasn't until after she'd finished this task that she noticed the dishwasher; she'd never had one herself, not really having enough space in her little apartment...or even the cash to waste on such a luxury appliance when she was a terminal dinner-for-one.

In the white-and-white-on-cream living room, the big windows looking out onto the street drenched the room in sunlight. If Caroline ever did become a vampire as she had on the show, it was almost comical to picture her kicking back in this room. The settees had pale upholstery it would be nearly impossible to get bloodstains out of, and the whole space felt so airy and bright that any self-respecting creature of the night would look bizarre sat in it. Even when down, the alabaster roman blinds wouldn't completely block out the sun.

There was no television in here, suggesting the presence of a smaller family room somewhere else in the house. Bored and still twitchy about what occurred in the night, Mildred decided to go find it. TV in this place could get a bit freaky, by all accounts, but she wanted _something_ to take her mind off things until her friend returned.

What she came across instead, however, was an octave-too-wide upright piano tucked into a cubby in one of the narrow downstairs hallways. Surprised to discover the instrument, she habitually tapped a few notes. Her fingers came away coated with dust. Giving the piano a quick wipe with the hem of her dress, she settled herself down on the tiny, gold-fringed stool beneath the instrument. She wasn't pitch perfect, so it was hard to be positive, but it sounded in tune – comparing middle-C with an F, the relative shift in the sound produced was good by ear.

She wasn't sure how long it had been since she last played… A few weeks before the accident, at least. In her opinion, that was far too long. Annoyingly, however, there wasn't an obvious selection of sheet music sitting nearby; either the owner of this piano learned and recalled their songs from memory, or they just made it up as they went along, divining notes from shadows of what they'd heard before.

It was a slight disappointment to not have the challenge of playing a new piece straight from stave. Her fingers fumbled and bounced, beginning a simple I-iv-VI-V progression, which then effortlessly shifted and twisted itself into _Pachelbel's Canon_ ; the familiar piece was so ingrained in her muscle memory that she could play it three sheets to the wind whilst blindfolded. Regretfully, this ease of playing meant she had far too much room to think. Within a couple of minutes, her brain was chasing its own tail over the 'reality vs unreality' and 'deadly, pissed of vampire' issues again.

Once she'd played the song twice over, her fingers repetitively hung on the last few notes, switching between them again and again. She needed to try a song she'd heard but never seen sheet music for. It would occupy her mind better if she had to work out chords and time signature from the only the vague memory of sound.

This turned out to be a fortuitous idea, the task eating up every inch of her concentration. She chose _Your Song_ , it being one of her mother's favored tracks; though Mildred herself had never been particularly partial to Elton John, all that meant was that she never listened _too_ closely to it when it was on, which should hopefully make playing it by ear a far greater challenge. In this, distraction was the aim, not enjoyability.

Like lots of popular music, the song quickly showed itself to be four-four and, after a few stops and starts, she decided it was probably meant to be played in Cb-major. Seeing as she could recall having heard any Elton John songs in the last three years at least, however, she couldn't be sure she wasn't messing it up from the start. The fact she could only half recall the lyrics, giving her that much less to base the tune off of, made it more difficult to reconstruct by far.

Mildred hummed thoughtfully as she worked, mind going over the same spans of notes again and again as she tried to replicate the tune best she could. It was low, breaking in odd places.

"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside," she mumbled to herself. "I'm not one of those who can easily hide. I don't have much money but boy if I did, I'd buy a big house where we both could live..."

Then more or less the same again...except now she couldn't recall the words at all. When she hit the chorus she stumbled, feeling the melody should rise but not quite sure how. So, in the interest of not giving it up as a bad job, she tried a few variations to see if any of them worked. After all, she knew the key – how badly could it go?

"And you can tell everybody, this is your song. It might be quite simple but, now that it's done..."

She needed to find the right note here.

"I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind I put down in words… How won–"

She hit a dud note. It flatly ricocheted down the hall – making her cringe – and the whole song fell apart. She was getting it all wrong.

She tried again.

Out of a haze of summer days spent on the porch of her childhood home, reading over American classics and performing one-woman versions of Shakespeare's plays to the ducks at the pond, while her mother punched keys on her typewriter from inside the farmhouse, something closer to the correct chorus began to form. It wasn't perfect. There were some important elements missing and the grace notes she put in shifted the whole song away from what it should be. It just didn't sound quite...well, the sound of it playing in her head wasn't quite matching up with how it'd probably been originally. She was very good at remembering what she read, and replicating something wasn't usually this much of a struggle; the problem lay in that, though her mind tended to take down a general tune when she heard a song, it didn't seem to bother paying the same level of attention to octave.

She was over the crest of the chorus, navigating her way through a part of the theoretical second verse that urged her to speed up a little and almost crescendo…

          Then a horrible thought wormed its way up from the pool of swirling notes and distorted lyrics:

_Vampires are touch telepaths._

Lucy explained that to her once, when Mildred had been failing to understand some scene from a disjointed, later episode of _the Vampire Diaries_. She hadn't really actively watched a lot of the show, spending the time it was on looking over casting calls and – generally crappy – scripts her agent sent, so she'd only seen an episode here and there from later seasons. Anyway, there'd been some scene where people were talking with Elena, even though she was asleep and they clearly weren't _hallucinating_ (you know, not unless it was some kind of mass-hallucination, which, even if you put mescaline in the water, seemed as impossible as Unreality and shared-dreaming).

To illuminate, Lucy informed her Elena was unable to wake as long as Bonnie lived – whatever the reason for that was? – and that all her friends were saying goodbye to her. When Mildred asked how they were managing to do that, Lucy said: 'Vampires have this eye contact thing where they compel people into doing their dirty work, right? Change what's in regular folks' minds? More than that nice bit of skullduggery, they're touch telepaths – kinda like Time Lords, I guess. Give 'em skin to skin contact and they can literally _step_ into some sorry bastard's head.'

Mildred had accepted that explanation, then promptly filed it away to the 'really not important' area of her mind. It wasn't like it was a piece of trivia that would ever be useful in her day to day life, after all… Totally a bucketload of irony there, of course.

Now, however, that old conversation resurfaced, causing her fingers to still. Vampires _could_ enter a person's dreams, which meant it was entirely possible Damon really _had_ been in her's last night. What was more worrying, though, was the supposition they required physical contact to do it. That must mean... _Damon was in the room._

She gave up all pretense of playing the piano.

_He's been invited in._

It was a disaster.

Her head flopped down onto the keys below, doing a very loud, dissonant version of the classic head meets desk.

"Fuck..." _He's mad and can get into Care's house. What if he hurts her to hurt me? He_ _ **will**_ _hurt her to get at me...and she probably won't even remember._ "Fuck fuck fuc–"

"It wasn't _that_ bad. Sounded pretty good, actually."

Mildred's head shot up and her body twisted so violently, to see who'd come into the hall, she managed to pitch herself and the stool right over. The two of them hit the floor at a funny angle. She heard one of the stool's legs splinter microseconds before her head cracked into the wall behind, catapulting blinding white light across her vision and leaving a sharp, lancing pain piercing the outer edge of her right eye.

"Oh gosh!" Caroline exclaimed, rushing forward.

Worried blue eyes entered Mildred's field of vision. For a moment the situation felt incredibly familiar, though she wasn't sure why... and then bobbing blond curls came into focus and the ghost of whatever caused the deja vu – whatever memory was almost but never made – slipped away.

Squinting up at her friend, she groaned, "Hmmm-ahghhh," letting out a heaving breath somewhere between a dismayed sigh and gasp of pain.

The other girl helped her up. Looking down at the delicate piano stool, Mildred saw one of the legs was snapped almost clean off.

"Urgh, I'm sorry…"

"For what, falling over?"

"No – the stool," Mildred corrected, gesturing down at it weakly.

Caroline's gaze followed her hand. The girl's brow furrowed a little as she saw what Mildred was talking about.

"Oh, don't worry," she said flatly. "It's not like it was an _antique_ or anything."

"Shit, _was it_? God, I'm sorry – you made me jump."

"No really, it's fine. I mean, it _is_ an antique, but it's my dad's." Judging by her tone, she really _didn't_ care it was destroyed; obviously there was no love lost between her and her father. "Why were you all–" she waved her hands around in a funny way apparently meant to indicate Mildred's face smooshed into the piano "–anyway?"

"I just… I had a shitty thought, remembered something, is all."

" _Oooookay_ … Want to talk about it?"

Mildred shook her head tiredly, still a bit dizzy from her tumble. "No, I...I just think I'm going to head home." Laughing a little awkwardly, she added, "So, you know, sorry for sleeping in your bed, using up your hot water, having your cereal, breaking your furniture – then just _leaving_..."

The blond giggled and waved her off. "It's fine. You must've been really tired – you didn't even notice me getting up...or shaking you. Gosh, Glore, you sleep like you're dead!"

As they gathered up Mildred's things (her purse and purchases from yesterday), Caroline confessed, "It was sort of nice having someone here – even sleeping-slash-dead. Mom's not really been about much since..."

Straining her mind back to Gloria's journal – which was a narcissistic/self-hating bundle of bitchiness most the way through – Mildred gambled, "Since your dad?"

"Yeah. And I– Well, you and I were never that close _before_ you..."

"Nearly kicked the bucket?"

"Well, what am I _supposed_ to say? 'Before your parents went and drove their car into Drowning Creek, nearly killing you and your sister too'?"

"Well, you're not exactly the most _sensitive_ of people," Mildred snorted. "That's pretty much what I'd expect you to say – not like I'd've been offended. Fact's fact, sugar-coating won't do a lick of good."

"How can you be so... _good_ after what happened, so – I don't know – blasé? When Dad cut and run I was a wreck for months, and he's only out east. Your parents are _dead_ and you seem...happy still. And you bought all those bright clothes, too, so it's not like you've just not had a chance to get a mourning wardrobe..."

Shrugging, Mildred pointed out, "What's done's done, nothing can change it." _Except body-snatchers who know the future._ "I got out, Mags got out – our parents wouldn't've wanted us _miserable_ , would they?"

"Aren't you sad, though?" Caroline asked through her frown, as if questioning Mildred's sanity.

"Well... _yeah_ , but people don't really see that bit, they see what they want to."

"So...it's all a front?"

If that made Care feel better, feel like Mildred was less... _not_ -Gloria, then sure, it was all a front. So she smiled, tightly telling the girl, "I must put on a hell of a good show, I suppose." Then, deftly changing the subject, she asked, "So, where'd you go this morning? You were gone when I got up."

"Oh, I just had to go to the store," her friend said matter-of-factly.

Despite Caroline's certainty, the response sounded... _off_ somehow. Instantly Mildred's hackled rose.

"Right, and what did you need to get?" she asked her friend.

"I...I don't–"

Eyes narrowing, Mildred probed, "What did you buy? I don't see any shopping bags."

"I don't know… I didn't take a list – I _always_ write a list, but I was in such a _hurry_."

A nauseating sensation slid through her stomach. _Why why_ _ **why**_ _?_ her mind yelled. Why would Care be in such a hurry to get to the shop, without even obsessive compulsively writing herself a list first?

On the outside, Mildred remained calm. "A hurry?" she asked lightly, curiously. "It's a Sunday – not exactly got a lot of commitments."

Caroline's face fell. "No, I was just – I had to go to the store, I was in a hurry."

Great. So, her friend had been compelled. That meant for sure Damon must've been in the house, to compel Caroline to leave it. Mildred supposed she should be thankful nothing worse happened to the blond girl; to be fair, though, even if it had it wasn't like Caroline would _remember_. If there was one plus, her friend _wasn't_ wearing a scarf, which seemed to indicate she hadn't recently been a vampire juicebox.

"Why don't I–" Caroline began, looking on the edge of hysterics now. "My routine. On Sundays I get up early, make pancakes, watch the Newsathon and reruns of Hombre de Castilla for Spanish, then draw the tub. Then Mom brings groceries...if she can be bothered to turn up."

"Hey, don't sweat it," Mildred consoled softly, putting a comforting hand on the girl's arm. "I must've wrecked your routine, being in your bed like that. I'm sure you can catch up on stuff now, right?"

"Yes, _yes_ ," Caroline agreed somewhat frantically, looking lost and confused. Mildred felt awful – the girl was an organization freak, so a shattered routine, especially apparently without reason, must be very distressing for her. "I can do that. But...Newsathon's finished by now..."

With her friend in such a state of disarray, she felt real bad about leaving, especially because the girl's moxy had been disrupted by Damon's compulsion… Meaning is was basically Mildred's fault. _She_ was the one who knew – kind of – the vampire and _she_ was the one who'd been pissing about with his head last night. She didn't know why Damon hadn't felt the need to compel _her_ into forgetting all about him being a vampire (perhaps the revelation she knew what he was had come so far out of left field that he wasn't thinking straight?). Whatever the reason, Caroline had probably caught him in her room or sneaking out the house or something – she just got unlucky. Hopefully, the girl would rehit her stride by the end of the day.

Mildred wasn't required to walk back to the Gilbert home. This was fortunate, seeing as she had absolutely no idea how far it was or which direction she should head in from the Forbes house. Instead of having to try and work it out, a few minutes after Caroline settled in to watch some Spanish-sounding soap opera, Jenna showed up.

"Thought you'd need a ride," was the woman's explanation. It seemed likely Caroline had called her. This idea was further cemented when Jenna inquired, "How's the head?"

When she was younger – older now, she supposed – out in the real-world, that question had always been one wondering how hungover she was. It was a bit weird to have someone ask her that without underlying implication of either amusement or judgment.

"Caroline's such a tattletale," Mildred whined, genuinely peeved. "But _fine_. I didn't hit it _that_ hard."

"Yeah, _so_... you've not got a headache?"

"Uh..."

Jenna's tone held an element of victory as she cried, "I knew it! I'm taking you to the hospital."

 _Great. Just great…_ Mildred though, pressing the side of her face against the car window as Jenna pulled out of the Forbes' drive.

Startled by the roar of the vehicle, a pretty but disgruntled-looking snowy owl swooped out the treeline behind Caroline's house, presumably off to find somewhere more peaceful to sleep. She dearly wished to do the same but instead was resigned to putting up with her pretend-aunt's dull, overprotective prattle about the 'delicate state' of Mildred's head considering the injuries she previously sustained in the accident. The woman was not to be dissuaded from this time-waste of a hospital visit, despite all attempts to make her see reason.

All Mildred could hope was that ER wasn't too busy. God knows, she wanted to get home to eat something that wasn't _granola_ at some point today.

 

 

 **Earlyish on Monday morning,** Mildred woke on the living room couch with her face in a sticky puddle of drool. The Gilberts didn't have a dog, thankfully, meaning the slobber was at least her own; it was a significant improvement on the times she'd woken up covered in disgusting strings of Dougal-drool (Dougal being her father's overly affectionate skye terrier).

Half sitting up with a groan, she wiped off whatever it was all over her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater, then flopped back down onto the settee with a hefty _thumpf_. Her eyes were open a crack and struggled to get a good focus on the ceiling; it felt like her head had been used to test a hydraulic press, her neck had a dreadful crick in it, and some solid object was digging itself into the small of her back. The couch – even the comfy, large ones the Gilberts had in their living room – was not a fantastic place to spend the night. No lumbar support, no blankets, and her clothes were clingy from where she'd perspired into in her sleep.

The sound of Jeremy's voice cajoling her rang out very close by.

"Morning, Sleeping _Beauty_ ," he said to a backing track of weird whirs and clicks and beeps.

Mildred just moaned again. Squinting in the direction of the TV, she saw the boy was playing some kind of sci-fi game set in a jungle. A bright – seriously, _super_ nova bright – flash ate up the screen and she hid her eyes behind her hands. It was too early for this shit. A moment later a scatter cushion slammed into her face; Jeremy could be such a douche sometimes.

"Urhg… What am I doing down here?" she wondered miserably into the cushion.

Sniggering, he informed her, "You passed out to that documentary on James III – was dull as shit, wish _I'd_ fallen asleep."

Turning onto her side and pushing herself up so her back rested against the end of the couch, Mildred gazed across at him blearily, rubbing sleep out her eyes. "Why didn't you turn it over if you were scared you might actually _learn_ something?" she mumbled grumpily, her cushion promising to protect her from any further projectiles.

He shrugged, most his attention fixed on the game he played. "Dunno, it had wolves and workhouses and–" he fired some kind of sunshine-missile through the on-screen darkness, then whooped in self-congratulation "–stuff. You were real interested. Was worrying, actually, thought you might turn into a little Tanner any second," he rambled, very obviously only acting so preoccupied with the game in order to deflect the real question.

Then, realizing he wasn't fooling her by the clucking sound her tongue made, he grimaced and admitted, "Couldn't find the blippy."

"The blippy?"

"The channel changing thing."

Amused, Mildred suggested, "The remote control?"

Jeremy glanced at her side on, confirmed, "That's the one," then made his on-screen character stretch up into an arabesque to grasp a branch.

Mildred removed the cushion from her face and rubbed soothing circles in her temples, trying to alleviate her headache. Wiggling awkwardly, she pulled the remote control out from underneath her – she'd been sleeping on the damn thing. She tossed it over at Jeremy, who caught it reflexively.

"What're you playing?" she asked him

He didn't glance away from the screen. Instead, he hammered several buttons at once, causing his character to perform some impressive acrobatics, leaping and swinging her way through the jungle. The colors on-screen were vivid, the landscape a series of sweeping strokes and flecked flowers. It was quite pretty.

"It's called Mellom Oss. You play a warrior woman separated from her people. They're at war and you have to find your way back to the front lines. It's kind of a big deal 'cause there's no loading screens – _none!_ – and what you do actually has an effect on what happens later on," Jeremy informed her distractedly. "If you make bad choices you won't make it back to your tribe quick enough to win the war. Saw one guy on the forums who managed to make her go evil. He ended up with the leader of the enemy or something – stopped the war and shit but ended up as some kind of dark queen. People've been saying it's a glitch."

"It could be an Easter egg," she pointed out.

Jeremy shrugged again.

To be honest, she was surprised by how much Jeremy had just said in one go. Most the time he was more prone to moody silence and half-assed grunting than conversation and smiles. She filed away the information he'd given her – because maybe it _would_ be important one day...turns out you never knew what you'd need and what was junk – for later use. Honestly, if that's how her 'brother' was _meant_ to behave then Mildred thought it was a lot like having a much younger, male Lucy for a sibling. She supposed it could be worse.

Sensing Jeremy was lost to the game, she hauled herself off the couch and set off on the hunt for breakfast. The contents of the fridge were sparse and the only cereal in the cupboard had been left open, making it go stale. Mildred screwed her nose up at the cornflakes, briefly annoyed by the way no one in this place seemed to know how to shop for groceries; first Caroline's kitchen was bare and now so was the Gilberts'. Honestly, it was a wonder they didn't starve through ineptitude at life… Perhaps the reason folks had been in that bar so often on the show was because they had to eat out every night due to being too lazy to cook. It certainly wasn't as if the family couldn't _afford_ food.

As her trip to the bank the day before yesterday had proven, the Gilberts were – between old family money, the parents' jobs and a hefty life insurance policy – totally loaded. For Mildred, who had spent the entirety of her adult life pecking around, picking up part-time jobs doing anything and everything just to make ends meet, the affluence of her new family was unconscionable. Logically, Mildred was well aware some people were simply lucky enough to be born to money – just look at Lucy, who's Boston-elite relatives had always showered the woman with everything she could ever need – but, having not been one of them herself, she'd never quite understood just what that was like. The farmhouse she grew up in was certainly sizable and, though drafty, in the winter her father managed to afford to heat it to near-tropical degrees, but most the furniture was good quality second-hand stuff and at times it was a stretch to make the cable bill.

The Gilbert house was easily as big as her childhood home – difference being, it wasn't in the middle of nowhere. Jeremy and Gloria's bedrooms and shared bath, the living room and kitchen were all part of an extension added on in the last few years, so admittedly the building had been significantly smaller before; despite this, it was surely a very expensive property in one of the best parts of town. Mildred supposed the extension of the house coincided with the birth of Magda, her older siblings moving to create an additional bedroom for her plus a guest room, and allowing what previously must've been the lounge and kitchen to be turned into a playroom and separate dining space.

Mildred had never seen Mags in the playroom – the girl was almost always glued to her 'sister's hip or in bed – and no one ever used the dining room. The Gilberts were more the type to eat in the kitchen or in front of the TV. Of course, that was when there was actually _food…_

Right at that moment, Jenna bustled through the front door with Magda trailing her, forcing Mildred to eat her previous thoughts. Apparently, her sister occasionally spent time with other family members and – judging by the blue grocery bags her aunt was carrying – someone _did_ go to the store... Eventually... You know, when there was literally nothing left to eat.

"Jeremy! Come help me with the bags," Jenna called from the open door.

The boy didn't so much as grunt or look round. Magda scampered around Jenna, speeding into the living room and catapulting her small body up into a seat with an impressive leap. Their aunt sighed, arms overflowing with bags that looked ready to split, and gave Mildred a look that clearly demanded her assistance.

Putting the groceries away was tedious. On the other hand, there were now bagels.

"I suppose you already know it's gone ten," Jenna said in a loaded, faux-absent tone, stowing away a box of ready mac and cheese. _Yuck_. "No school – not with that concussion."

Mildred sighed. "They said I was fine – no concussion." Looking at the clock, she noted it actually read _quarter-till_ -ten.

"Don't care what they said – it's still gone ten, too late to go in now."

Ah – the logic of some people. Mildred pointed out argument _a_ was defunct (because it was a lie), Jenna grasped at argument _b_ (which, to be fair, was _also_ a lie). Not to mention, if her stupid, fake, unreasonably overbearing aunt gave her a lift, Mildred could still make the start of second period, which was homeroom on a Monday. Come to think about it, that wasn't even important to anyone not looking to catch up on their reading – she could skip it and go in after lunch. Urgh, just in time to catch French… Sucky.

Yanking her bagel out the toaster, Mildred considered just letting Jenna have her way. Not like missing French and biochem was much of a loss. Deciding this _was_ , in fact, the most advisable course of action, especially considering her headache, Mildred didn't bother pointing out to the woman just how full of shit she was.

And her cell rang. Caller ident read simply _CARE…_

She couldn't be bothered to take that as an instruction right now.

Caroline started in without so much as a 'hello'. " _I really need you to come help with the planting in Town Square. Bennet bailed – probably off with the crackheads at the cemetery – and none of the Fells've shown up."_

She tried not to be annoyed by the way her friend asked her to drop everything without so much as a 'by your leave' – especially after lobbing Mildred in the doghouse yesterday.

"Sorry, can't," Mildred ground out through a mouthful of well-buttered bagel. "I'm on house arrest."

" _You're grounded?"_ Caroline asked in disbelief, sounding more than a little angry. " _What did you do?"_

"What did _I_ do?" Mildred threw back. "'What did _I_ do', she asked… What did _you_ do? _Some_ one told my aunt I hit my head, so she took me to the hospital and now she's not letting me come in today. Know you get the morning out for this, but I can't help with your stupid gardening thing."

" _I… I'm sorry, Glore,"_ the girl said in a small voice. There were a few beats of silence, before she asked, " _Do you really think it's stupid?"_

Mildred sighed and ran a hand over her face; stray butter shifted itself from the side of her thumb to her cheek. "No, Care… I shouldn't've said that, didn't mean it. I'm just pissed… It's not stupid – I think it's nice but...I'm really not allowed out."

Because she was a teenager now – again – and abiding by the rules was, for now, just the path of least resistance. Let Jenna think she'd won, she was boss. Mildred's dad had always told her to pick and choose her battles, a loss now could pave the way for victory another day.

" _Okay then. For what it's worth, sorry I got you in trouble."_

"Probably not all you. I kept falling asleep on the couch when we got back from the ER – convinced her I was concussed even though docs said it was fine," Mildred admitted with some annoyance. So what if she was tired, that didn't mean shit. "Hey, on more cheerful subjects, you should get Matt to come help. I'm sure he'd like to get... _muddy_ with you."

" _Urgh, don't kid!"_ her friend exclaimed, neurotically babbling, " _I couldn't find my good gloves, and the Horticultural Society's ones are too big, and I got mud in them, so now it's all stuck under my nails and–  Wait, did you just imply I should hit on your **ex**?"_

Caught that, had she? "No no, not at all – just… totally, completely."

" _Seriously? What about girl code?"_

"Thou shalt not date thy bestie's ex? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that one only counts if she's still in love with him, or if he did something dickish to her. Me and Matt just...called it quits." _In a very one-sided manner._

"I'm not interested, anyway," Caroline insisted.

Even though her friend couldn't see, Mildred shrugged. She was pretty sure Matt and the blond girl had really good chemistry. "Whatever you say… Just so you know, though, it wouldn't bother me. Matt's good looking and super nice – any girl with half a brain'd be all over him," she finished with a touch of self-flagellation.

" _So...that's why you broke up with him – because he's too nice?"_

"Yep."

" _That makes no sense."_

Mildred was significantly more cheerful after speaking with Caroline. Now completely convinced her aunt's school-vetoing was a good thing, she spent the day finding her way around the controls of Jeremy's favorite videogames and teaching Magda slightly inappropriate versions of nursery rhymes. Though apparently even Jenna, who seemed to have decided this was amusing, drew the line at 'Mary had a little lamb which ran into a pylon, ten-thousand volts up its bum turned its coat to nylon'.

"But it's scientifically accurate!" Jeremy insisted between guffaws.

Mildred shoved him and whispered sotto voce, "Uh, no it isn't – really _really_ isn't. School's there for a reason, Jere."

"It _so_ should be," the boy declared. "Sounds way more fun than chemical-bath _this_ and chemical-wash _that_. Man, Ms. Smallwood's an inbred bore..."

Giving him an amused look, Mildred pointed out, "I'm pretty sure all the Founding Families are majorly inbred. I wouldn't be surprised if you had webbing between your toes."

"That's hillbillies," Jeremy assured her.

"Okay, you guys," their aunt laughed, lifting Magda from the couch. The little girl quietly squirmed in her arms. "You–" she said, tapping the smallest Gilbert on the nose "–need a nap, missy. And you two–" she narrowed her eyes a smidge "–might want to consider doing something constructive until dinner."

"Like preemptively finding an antidote to whatever poison you're going to serve up next?" Mildred asked innocently. Pick your battles, after all.

The question was deemed offensive; Jenna left with a halfhearted glare and a huff… Okay, maybe the comment wasn't innocent so much as Mildred being habitually spiteful toward her new aunt. She had been _grounded_ by a woman no older than she was in the real-world. God damn it, it was demeaning!

Jeremy decided them getting as far as possible in his new game qualified as 'constructive'. So, with Magda safely ensconced in her bedroom, he was finally free to have them play the game she'd picked up over the weekend. It turned out to be _Presiding Evil: Rezurrection_. It was a good thing the toddler wasn't present because the game got awfully gory in places. They made a competition of their most spectacular and – in Mildred's case – lucky kills, each trying to outdo the other.

When Jenna returned she frowned. "I thought I said _constructive."_

"This is constructive," Jeremy claimed unconvincingly.

"Uh huh."

"It _is_ ," the boy insisted. "It's, uh..." He looked to Mildred for help.

"Marksmanship," she filled in instantly, offering her brother a high-five that he left hanging.

"Yeah... _no_ ," he grimaced. "I'll toast to lazy days or, uh, _brofist_ if you  _really_ want but...no high-fiving – _so_ uncool."

Mildred was out of touch with the kids. Funny, seeing as she technically _was_ one.

Their aunt retreated to the safety of the kitchen, clucking her tongue loudly now and then. She couldn't say much, though, because at least Mildred and her assumed-brother were getting along.

"Why don't you stay home all the time?" Jeremy wondered that evening, looking oddly hopeful she might decide to all of a sudden.

She didn't.  "Uh, because _school_ – you know, that strange, foreign land all kids are supposed to be shipped off to every morning?"

"I heard," he whispered fearfully, "at school they make you do sums and stuff. And _read_..." He shuddered theatrically, making her wonder if overacting was a Gilbert family trait. "And sometimes they even want you to write _stories_."

Lowering her voice to match his, Mildred confirmed they did indeed make you do 'sums and stuff'. "And they like to call those 'stories'–" her fingers made silly-quotes "– _essays_."

He snorted, then a sober, solemn expression crossed his face. "But seriously – we're sad little orphans, free pass for the rest of the year. Why'd you bother going? It's got to make you feel like crap."

Mildred shrugged. "I'd be bored if I didn't. I'd never see Matt or Care. Plus, junior year's really important – more than senior, even – and you do _not_ want to see my scores. I guess I missed some exams or something, and uh...flunked half the make-up tests. I blame coma trauma." _And laziness and Unreality insanity._

"Caroline's...sweet, I guess. She could come here. Not Matt, though."

She spoke through a laugh. "You've got a problem with Matt? Why? He's like the nicest person _ever_."

"He used to go out with my sister," he explained with an easy shrug. "It's weird now."

"Wow," Mildred muttered, nonplussed, "remind me to introduce you to Logan Scumfell sometime."

"Logan Scu… Fell? Logan _Fell?_ The WPKW reporter? Uh...sure – _why_?"

Ready to remind the boy that skeeze had jilted their aunt, Mildred caught Jenna's stormy expression from the kitchen. Clearly, she had freakishly good hearing. Though she'd never been frightened of the woman's wrath before, in this case, it really did look like a textbook example of hell hath no fury… Perhaps the subject was safest dropped.

"Uh...never mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I've been away a long time. I've been, uh...sick, sleeping. Whatever. Something like that. No – truth be, I've been in and out of the hospital a lot, had more procedures than I care to mention. Poor health sucks. I've just not had the brain power required to do anything useful lately. But I'm kind of back now – I mean, I'm at least capable of proof reading stuff I wrote ages ago, anyway. I'll do the next chapter tomorrow – it's a bit less...boring.


	9. The Hunt for Blue Verbena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: Nowhere in town seems to have what she needs to protect her and the Gilberts – and Matt and Care, for that matter – from Damon, who, she is pretty sure, was the antagonist in the show's early days. Even worse, the strain of everything is really starting to get to her, and she's making mistakes.

 

 

 

 _june  
_ the hunt for blue verbena

 

 

 **Despite Jeremy's emphatic desire,** she did go back to Richard C. Lee on Tuesday. This was mainly because she really needed to go try the florists and health shops after school to see if any of them happened to sell vervain, rather than through any actual desire to learn, though partially because Jenna was still giving her hard looks about all her antagonizing comments yesterday. Mildred wasn't sure what the woman had expected; for a teenager, discipline is _supposed_ to spark rebellion.

Classes passed in usual dull fashion, with a good pinch of weird. The more strange aspects of the school day were all to do with the more bizarre things she learned in govec about Unreality's workings, the way the students acting in _That Scottish Play_ were more than willing to name it, and the fact the juniors were studying a novel called _When We Were One_ in English lit.

The book was about a trio of lovers – immortal and lost, separated through time – whose mortal reincarnations met one another again and again and again. It was very...romantic, in some ways, but mainly a depressing and painful read with no happy endings. It was probably such an unpleasant story because it was dotted with repeats of the same angsty love triangle. Plus, it didn't help that all the reincarnations kept dying young, tragic deaths, punished for something the original versions of them had done many thousands of years earlier. It was damn depressing and something about the novel made Mildred's teeth buzz.

In govec they were conducting 'deeper' study – annoying, seeing as she'd never done the implied 'shallow' study – into something called Gordian economics, which made her head hurt enough to make her wish she _had_ stayed at home and played _Mellom Oss_ a bit more. She had no idea what Ms. Falafel was going on about, talking about how markets fed back into one another like sea and wind currents or a complex infinity knot. Really, Mildred excelled in English literature and language both, and also in singing and dancing and acting; ask her to paint a picture, or do anything involving geometry or algebra, and she might as well have set up camp behind a mile-high eight ball.

When the bell rang, Ms. Falafel (who had returned from holiday to relive the substitute they'd had before) announced that on Thursday they would be moving onto 'the differences between conviction and convection politics, and the way in which multilateral organizations conduct themselves with regards to each'. They were given required reading and shooed out the door without so much as a friendly glance; the teacher was a pretty but extremely _grumpy_  bitch. Mildred escaped the class gratefully.

Gloria Gilbert must've had a strong stomach to take so many high-level academic classes with no reprieve in the arts. At least Caroline – who, it turned out, was very good at math – took music, drama and textiles too.

The one plus about Jenna– the woman had gotten Mildred a note that said she didn't have to do gym today. Even without a note, the gym class she observed didn't actually appear particularly taxing; it was nearly the end of the semester and the teacher didn't look like he could be bothered anymore, so it was dodgeball. Mildred waited as patiently as she could for final bell. Eventually, it _did_ sound; it was gratefully she climbed into Matt's truck.

Earlier on she'd asked Matt if he minded hauling her around town so she could run a couple of errands. Mildred offered to cover him for extra gas expenditure but he waved her off, citing some wait slots opening up at the Grill as his reason. For all his sweetness, the boy didn't exactly have poor self-esteem; he had an upcoming interview at the local restaurant and confidence he'd snag a position. She'd call him big-headed...but if he really _had_ gone in there shirtless and coated in baby-oil, then maybe his arrogance wasn't misplaced?

First, they stopped off at a health food store called simply Au Natural; she supposed the owner was too lazy to come up with a better name. She scanned the shelves for vervain tea, whether in loose or bagged form, but came up with nothing. Honestly, in a town that had a boner for vampires, in which there were plenty of people in the know, you'd expect they would sell it _anywhere_ and _everywhere_ they could get away with it. The second and third places they tried were florists. Mildred had researched the plant's appearance the previous evening but didn't see any telltale blue- or purple-flowered stems in either of the stores. The closest Fiona's Flowers came to what she needed was a mixed pot of cut viper's bugless, veronicas and purple milkwort, all of which were useless for her purpose.

"Verbena hastata?" the florist at Fiona's Flowers echoed confusedly when Mildred finally plucked up the courage to _ask_ if they had any.

"Or stricta," Mildred added, not really fussed which and unsure what difference it made.

"That's a grave weed in these parts," the woman informed her. "Bad luck to put it in a bouquet – I don't keep it in stock."

There Mildred had her answer, even if it did seem a somewhat foolish one.

It was Matt who suggested that, if she _really_  needed some vervain, they head over to the cemetery. He didn't understand why she was after the plant, of course, so she fed him some bull about tea made from it being good for period cramps. This embarrassed him enough he immediately dropped the line of questioning.

Mildred had never been to the Fell's Church graveyard before. It was large, old and overgrown, and smelled faintly of over-stewed cabbage, but nowhere near full. The route from the Gilberts' home to the high school passed another cemetery whose institution was clearly more recent; she was sure Founding Family members were still buried in the old one, where their plots had been since the town's formation. It seemed likely none but die hard traditionalists would've wanted to be buried here after the mass vampire-burning incident back in 1864... Hence the newer, in-town alternative.

Wait – there was something about a tomb, wasn't there? A tomb with a couple of dozen starved-to-the-point-of-death vampires trapped inside. Was that _here_? Did this graveyard actually have a population of hungry corpses just waiting to be woken? Were they lurking, hidden in one of the many mausoleums?

Stepping between row upon row of mossy grave markers, Matt shuddered. "It's creepy being out here alone," he whispered. "Coming to Duke's crazy parties is one thing, just _hanging out_ here..."

Hadn't Elena done that in the show? Though Mildred was pretty sure she'd been sitting morbidly in her family plot, so this must be where the Gilbert parents had been buried.

Choosing to playfully take offense, she hissed back, "Just because there's no _Honeycutts_ here. Do you feel _judged_ , oh non-Founder in the Founders' Cemetery? Do you think they're going to crawl out their graves to eat your plebian flesh?"

"Oh God, Ri – I'm sorry, I forgot," the boy hurried to say. "Your _family_ 's here… I mean, they had the service at Trinity, so I didn't think..." He trailed off, looking guilty. "Keira's here too, right? I should've come before… I just… Graves depress me."

Mildred had to laugh at that proclamation. "I think they depress _everyone_. Half the point – guilt everyone into bringing you flowers even though you're too dead to appreciate them."

"Yeah, well, speaking of flowers – you see any of this plant you're looking for?"

She shook her head. There _were_ a lot of wildflowers running unchecked through Fell's Church Cemetery but none of them were a recognizable species of vervain.

"It's native to the region, you'd think there'd be some _somewhere_ ," she commented suspiciously, stepping further into the cemetery, eyes lighting on many markers with semi-familiar names.

Behind individual, dividing iron archways, there were rows of Salvatores, patches of Woods, Lockes and Smalls, a grand swathe of Fells taking up what seemed to be half the used plot space, and a little huddle of Franchers in a dark corner under some yew trees. Near the back of each section was the respective family's original crypts, the First Founders resting within while the graves of those in their bloodline sat in the dirt before them like churchgoers attending sermon. Matt was right, this place _was_ creepy.

It seemed strange there wasn't any vervain here. She would think the Founding Families, who were obsessed with the town's vampires, would've wanted to make undeath difficult for any family member who might've sucked down vampire blood before their demise. People used to be buried far more swiftly, after all, so it couldn't have been that uncommon for those turned to wake up six feet under and have to dig their way out… How _long_ was it before a new vampire came back from the dead? Vervain on the graves would make that difficult, surely; or did vervain only burn _after_ someone fully turned, after they'd had fresh blood? Mildred really never watched the show closely, so she wasn't certain how it worked.

The two of them circled round the cemetery methodically. The air in the Fell plot was especially heavy, particularly toward the treeline where their original crypt lay, making Mildred's insides churn. Eventually, the inevitable happened; she and Matt entered the section of Fell's Church dedicated to the great and good Gilbert family. Mostly it consisted of cross and angel markers over the graves of unknown family members. She spotted the headstones of Jonathan Gilberts II through VII, making her idly wonder whatever happened to Jonathan Gilbert _I_.

     Then there it was, right in front of her.

Not the desperately sought vervain – required to protect the minds of friends, family and Mildred herself – but the headstone belonging to the Gilbert parents.

It was gleaming, pristine white, and the glittering shards of quartz scattered through the rock were so well-polished they wouldn't look astray in a piece of jewelry. As with other modern gravestones in her dream-world, above the carved _Grayson and Miranda Gilbert_ , there was a line of photographs embedded into the stone: A full family photo, one of their wedding, one apiece from childhood, and one each from adulthood.

It wasn't this grave that caught her attention.

Her eyes locked onto the one cuddled up to it, as perfectly clean as that of the Gilbert parents. The photos adorning this headstone all showed, through various ages, a young, horribly familiar girl with blond ringlets and deep blue eyes. The golden letters inscribed read _Keira Anne Gilbert, June 21_ _st_ _1988 – December 27_ _th_ _2004_.

The face in the photos was the same one that had baffled her in Gloria's mirror montage, one of the unknown girls she'd been unable to identify until now. This was the sunburnt girl… The second sister she never knew Gloria had… More than that, these photos were so clear, their occupant free of blemish, Mildred could see this was a face that now stared back at her in the mirror each day. So, given the date of birth, this was not just Gloria's sister, it was her _twin_ sister...her _identical_ twin sister. Mildred didn't know how she hadn't seen that they were such an exact likeness before, while pouring over the photos Gloria kept in her room.

Not knowing the reason for it, Mildred's knees buckled.

She found herself in the dirt before Keira Gilbert's grave, staring at the photographs and dates, mumbling, "Oh God, oh God, oh God," over and over again.

A grave was a cold bed for a girl far too young to have earned one. How had the girl died? She'd only been sixteen. Was it an accident, an illness? Mildred recalled vaguely there's been a whole doppelganger-sacrifice palaver in season two; something about a curse that demanded a payment of blood to be broken. Was _that_ what had happened to this girl, who was a perfect copy of the body Mildred herself now inhabited. Was _Gloria_ even the doppelganger at all, or had her sister been? If they were identical, how could anyone tell?

     Too many questions.

This discovery was too _sudden_. The existence – the _previous_ existence, Mildred corrected herself slowly, feeling like she might vomit – of an identical twin sister was way off the tracks. She knew for sure that, though there's been a surplus of doppelgangers dotted throughout _the Vampire Diaries_ , none of them had been anywhere close to Elena's age. There was Catherine and Amara, and that other one who'd been about when the first vampires lived in the area, but definitely no word of a twin to the main character. Though...there hadn't been a _Magda_ , either, so clearly this dream-world was heavily distorted.

And that was it, wasn't it? It was a dream – just a friggin nightmare she couldn't wake up from. Why was she fretting? This Keira girl wasn't even real, meant nothing to her… So why the fuck did Mildred feel like her soul was being ripped out right now?

          None of this was real.

     In dream-world, _she_ was a god.

              _None of it was real…_

A warm arm wrapped itself about her shoulders, hauling her to her feet.

She had forgotten she was on the ground.

Matt was here. How long had he spent watching Mildred stare aghast at the grave of a pseudo-sister she'd never even met? Too long, judging by how cold her bare knees and shins were from the damp earth.

"Come on," Matt said kindly, soothingly, like he was taming a wild horse. He shuffled a bit. "We should get out of here… You don't want to be drinking tea made out of anything from the _cemetery_ , anyways. We'll just get you some APAP."

His voice was shaky, belying his attempt at levity – it fell flat in face of what she'd just found out about the Gilberts. Nonetheless, she allowed him to lead her stupefied form back to his truck.

They drove away from Fell's Church empty handed.

On the road, Mildred couldn't stop envisioning various scenarios in which the Gilbert family was decimated by vampires. It had happened on the show and, given the tragically early death of Keira Gilbert, there was a chance it had begun happening _here_  already. Screw a trip to the pharmacist. They wouldn't have what she really needed if she wanted to make sure that, at the very least, the people she'd grown to care for in the past few weeks couldn't be compelled.

Suddenly, as they were slowly driving past the twisted remains of the guardrail on Wickery Bridge – which, she'd learned, crossed the oh-so-auspiciously named Drowning Creek – she recalled something vital: In the really early episodes of _the Vampire Diaries_ , there had been a man named Zane or Zach or something. Stefan had referred to him as his 'uncle'. Zach had been growing vervain, which was later used to incapacitate Damon.

Chances were, if the man existed here then _he'd_ have some.

"Wait, stop!" she exclaimed, causing Matt to glance over at her with a concerned expression.

"You want to stop _here_? On the bridge where..."

Flapping her hands as she tried to think, Mildred snapped, "No, no, of course not. I'm just..."

That big old house the Salvtores lived in had to be somewhere out here; it was in the woods rather than the town, right? It certainly had been a very long driveway on the show, and the most sizable homes in Mystic Falls did seem to be on the periphery. Ah, the rich and ancient and naughty – easier to bury a body if nobody was about to see you jamming it in your trunk…

Nodding to herself decisively, she told her friend, "We need to go to the Salvatore place."

Matt frowned heavily. "The Boarding House, you mean? But that's back the other way. _Why?_ "

"I know where to get the vervain."

"Okay… But do you _really_ think us going back there's a good idea?"

"I need that plant."

With a heavy, put upon sigh, he gave his reluctant acceptance. Matt performed a U-turn and drove back over Wickery Bridge, this time heading away from town.

The house the Salvatore's kept was a late nineteenth-century affair – asymmetrical and sprawling – with a large gable at one end set with a small pair of curved eye-windows that made Mildred think of Amityville. The long gravel driveway had big old trees stationed along it, like a line of sentinel guarding the estate beyond, and ended in a flower-bedecked traffic circle. The stone, wood-cladding and blue-gray slated roof were actually quite inviting, which was surprising considering that – at least at some point in its life – the building housed vampires. Other than one dodgy set of windows, nothing about the green gardens and warm lights suggested there was anything remotely evil about the place. Looks were deceiving.

"Still think this is a good idea?"

Mildred shrugged carelessly. "It's the _only_ idea."

It was starting to get dark, though sunset was some ways off yet. The cloudy day drew the night in early; even so, the air was more pleasant now than it had been for the morning fogs the town had gotten almost every day since she arrived in this world. Obviously, true summer was now setting in.

She was nervous as she rapped on the front door, which was sturdy oak, with shifting lines of vertical-sinewave studwork. She didn't think this was the original primary entrance; it seemed more a preferred side-door, less formal and imposing than the double-doors further up the building.

Matt froze awkwardly behind her when the door opened, revealing who she assumed to be Zach Salvatore. The man was probably in his early thirties, had salt and pepper hair, graying at the sides, and sported several days worth of beard growth. Glaring down at her through hawkish eyes, his expression was anything but one of welcome.

Taken aback by how hostile the man appeared, Mildred stuttered, "Uh...you know me, right? Gloria Gilbert." Stupid question, for the answer was obviously yes. With an air of pointless hope, she asked politely, "May I come in?"

One hand still on the handle, the other on the doorframe, barring the way, Zach seemed to think about it for a moment. Then he said simply, "It would be better if you stayed out there."

 _Great_.

Staring him down, Mildred insisted she be allowed inside. "I'd rather not do this where _anything_ could hear... Please."

Behind her, a block of nervous energy, Matt started to back up down the driveway. Zach was stiff in front of her, offering up what was likely his most threatening/triumphant grin.

"That won't work for _me_ ," the man crowed, still not stepping over his own threshold. "I consume vervain daily! How can I even be sure you're the Gilbert girl? You could be Bane, back for trouble – slippery bitch probably slithered out Fell's Trap."

Her eyes rolled in exasperation. When she spoke, her voice came out a harsh whisper. "I'm not a _vampire_ , dipshit."

Despite Matt's strangled noise of protest behind her, Mildred pushed past the man and strode into the Boarding House. This action, she figured, would go a long way in proving her point.

Zach, however, was unimpressed. His stony expression didn't fade even as she made it clear she was human.

"The last time you were here, you wanted my housekeeper to contact the 'other side' so you could speak with the dead," he growled. Seriously _growled_. "Don't think I've forgotten how _that_ went – nobody wants to live here anymore, I'm going out of business thanks to you and your stupid friends."

Bemused, Mildred wondered what on earth he was going on about; obviously, whatever it was happened before she arrived. Perhaps it had to do with the twin sister, Keira? In a world where magic was real and in a town where it seemed unusually prominent, did more people believe in ghosts and such? Was it possible her predecessor believed enough to try and get a medium to help her speak with someone in the afterlife?

"He's got a point, Ri," Matt sighed from over her shoulder, sounding highly discomforted. "Look, Mr. Salvatore, I told her we shouldn't come. We're just going to go now..."

Whipping her head around to give her friend a hard look, trying not to cave to the puppy dog power of those blue eyes, she snapped, "No – we need to be here." Returning her gaze to Zach, she put on her best earnest/guilty face. "I'm really sorry about before – _I really am_. I...I wasn't in a good place, okay."

"Sorry's not nearly good enough, Gloria. You abused my trust. I told you never come back here. You're just here to use me – good old Uncle Zach, only to be bothered with when he can do something for you!"

Okay… So the guy was lonely, beginning to run out of capital, and had a massive inferiority complex. He'd also described himself as 'Uncle Zach', meaning their families must've been relatively close at some point in recent history. Mildred could work with these things.

"Come on," she huffed, pacing back and forth in the hall. She stopped abruptly for effect, her eyes piercing through Zach. "I'm _not_ looking for bed and ouija board here – I just need a bit of vervain."

It was requested casually. Zach's shocked inhale told her she'd grabbed his attention. She knew, now, she was on the right track – Zach knew about vervain, vampires, all of it. He must have what she needed.

Pushing her advantage home, she placatingly promised, "No dangerous seances, no eating your housekeeper. Just a bit of vervain to keep my family safe. This wouldn't be the _first_ time you've provided a Gilbert with it, would it?"

The man overcame his surprise quickly. Eyes slits once more, he commented, "I don't understand how you even _know_ what a person might want with verbena… Why _do_ you want it?" he wondered suspiciously, the cogs of his train of thought clearly turning faster than he could actually follow consciously.

Another eye roll, another huff. "Safety, like I said. Haven't I already proved I'm _human_ – you didn't invite me, I go out in the day..."

Zach scoffed. "It's nearly dark – and _cloudy_. You'll have to do better than that."

"You're _alive_ , aren't you? And again, I came in without permission."

"Means nothing. Some can here – fool of an ancestor gave a very _open_ invitation we've never found a way round."

Huh… That was interesting. She thought new invitations had to be issued after a house changed hands. Hadn't the Salvatores _given_ Elena _this_ house so that other vampires wouldn't be able to get in? Guess the show wasn't much to go on in this place.

     Then

"Will somebody tell me _what the_ _ **hell**_ is going on here?" a voice exclaimed all of a sudden, breaking through Mildred and Zach Salvatore's back-and-forth.

The man rounded on her. "Honeycutt doesn't already _know_? Are you crazy, dumb, or _both_? I thought you might've learned your lesson after your psychic friend nearly brought the roof down on us, but you're still making the same _stupid_ choices."

Zach's shoulders drew in, a torpedo just waiting for strike orders. "And now you're dragging some poor innocent into all this – _you_ shouldn't even know, you're far too young!"

Urgh… God damn it! She _knew_ there was something not-quite-right about this situation, something out of place… She'd pretty much forgotten all about her friend's ignorance on the subject of the supernatural, so close to finally managing to get the vervain that she could almost taste it.

Fuck… Zach was kind of right – sometimes she was so _thick_. She's just gone off on a fucking rant about vampires in front of _Matt_ , who was probably the most _normal_ person on _the Vampire Diaries_ and one of the last to find out about all the insane shit going on around him. Trying to recall to how he'd reacted to the revelation on the show, Mildred realized she couldn't; she thought there was something where a vamped-up Caroline compelled him to forget she wasn't human. That must've been quite early on – by the start of the third season, the quarterback was _definitely_ in the loop.

Oh well. It couldn't do much harm for him to be clued in a bit early. At least he'd be a bit better prepared for his future… Which, was the show any indication – and screw it all! It _wasn't_ necessarily – bloody and confusing and generally unpleasant. Well, better prepared if he believed her at all, that was.

Steeling herself, speaking in a tone that left no room whatsoever for argument, she informed Zach, "He needed to know anyway – he'll be caught right up in the middle of this either way, trust me. It's not so simple anymore… It's not going to be a rousing game of Founders Against the Undead." Her voice took on a dark, dangerous quality she once had to use for a melodramatic, insane character she'd played for while. "Someday soon," she warned, "if we're not careful we'll be looking at all out war."

"Seriously… What the hell are you guys talking about? Please, please tell me Healey's putting on another original production this summer," Matt basically begged. Cogs were visibly whirring in his head, too, and the expression on his face made it very clear he thought both she and Zach were thoroughly nuts. "God, I can't believe I'm hearing this..."

Shrugging – knowing he had to get over it at some point, so she could answer his questions then – Mildred decided to get things moving a bit.

She posed the obvious questions. "Why would a _vampire_ want vervain? And, if I were some monster with no control–" harsh, yeah, but Zach and the Council liked themselves a bit of anti-vamp bitching whether they got the facts right or not "–wouldn't I have eaten you by now?"

Zach had to trust her or he was done for. He'd died within the first few episodes of the show, so if he didn't cooperate...well, then perhaps she would just...let it happen. It was callous but the man wasn't the brightest bulb and had, on TV at least, kept antagonizing Damon until he finally wound up dead. If that happened here, it wasn't like it would be _her_ fault.

Eventually, she got her way.

"Fine. You wait in the sitting room, I'll go get it. You know how to prepare it?"

Mildred smiled sweetly. "I'm sure I'll work something out."

"Good. I haven't got time for this. And please, _please_  just stay away from Mrs. Flowers – she's still recovering from her last encounter with you."

Zach directed her and Matt into the living room. Predictably, it felt like an old gentleman's smoking room, albeit a huge one dotted with antiques probably worth more individually than Mildred ever made in a year back in the real-world.

Just as he was about to go around the corner, the man stopped and turned back to her. "I don't know what you do that I don't," he began nervously, all his previous bluster and pissed-offness dissipating like a wave breaking across rocks, "but if you need something for protection _right now_ , there's Uisce on the side. Stuff's full of vervain. Glasses are clean – on the bookshelf."

Then Zach was gone.

It took Mildred a few seconds to understand what he referred to. Eventually, her eyes alighted on a crystal decanter of Scotch on the sideboard. Shrugging, she idly inspected the fancy snifters on the bookshelf for a moment before helping herself to a drink. She poured a second measure for Matt and offered it to him; the boy took the whiskey almost robotically.

Ah, shellshock. Or just disbelief.

The second was more likely, actually.

After several minutes managed to go by in stilted air, Mildred sipping at her drink compulsively, she decided Matt wasn't going to start talking. Maybe he _was_ shell-shocked. Or, again, maybe he was just considering whether or not she was crazy and if he should have her sectioned.

This was kind of a bomb to drop on him but...well, to be honest, it would be nice to have one other person in the know.

"Don't you have questions?"

"Fifty-one-fifty kind of questions? Yeah, just a little bit," he batted back with no joviality in his tone. "Like, when the hell did you go insane? And how come I didn't notice before?"

She chuckled darkly, having often contemplated the same thing herself.

"But, seriously...you were speaking like...like..."

His sentence trailed off, leaving her to pick up the pieces. Mildred offered a mocking pout and tone, cooing, "Like there's things in the world you don't believe in," then felt a bit bad about it. She let out a heavy breath of frustration before saying, more kindly now, "Because there are, and I don't really expect you to take it at face value but–"

"Oh no, face value, I can do that!" Matt cut in. "I can take it at face value something's shaken a few screws loose up in that clever brain of yours," he said cooly. "You've been _different_ lately… And I've put it on the accident, on the trauma, but… Gloria, you act like you're on another planet. Forgetting things – locker combos, passwords, stupid school stuff we learned years ago. You've not said a word about how Bonnie's doing up in New Alba, not even sure you've _spoken_ to her since the accident. And treating Meredith like she's a pariah, like she doesn't even _exist_ most the time…"

He drew in a deep gulp of air and rambled on. "You've not been wearing black, even though you _should_ – sometimes it's like you don't even _care_ about your parents dying… You don't like the same things you used to. _Hell_ , you've even been making nice and buddy-buddy with _Caroline Forbes_ of all people… It's like the two of you are pea-pods all of a sudden!"

Matt's voice faltered and his eyes closed, forehead sinking into a deep frown. "I– Gloria, it's like I don't even know you anymore. You're still here–" he waved a hand up and down her demonstratively "–but you're not the same person."

     Uh... _wow_.

So...Matt was a lot more observant than she'd been giving him credit for. She didn't know why he _wouldn't_ be observant, seeing as he was pretty savvy socially in general. This also meant she was doing a poor job of pretending to be Gloria Gilbert; it wasn't her fault, though, seeing as she didn't even get basic background information like the girl had a twin sister who copped it! How was Mildred meant to pretend to be a person she knew nothing about? TV had not prepared her for this. A _lifetime of acting_ hadn't prepared her for this.

"Look," she began, instead of giving up the schtick and telling him how right he was, "I know a lot's changed between us lately, and I'm still sorry for that. You're my best-friend – you and Care, anyway. I...you mean a lot to me, and I want you safe, which is why I'm telling you all this now."

"Telling me what? That insanity's infectious and somehow Mr. Salvatore's caught the same crazy-disease as you?"

Man, he was speaking like they had syphilis or something… That was _not_ funny.

"That vampires are real," she corrected stoically. "And you need to watch out for yourself.!

Matt laughed, the sound empty. "Sure, pull the other one – bells there."

Giving a disgruntled tut in response to his decision, Mildred ordered, "Drink your Scotch."

Blindsided for a new reason, the boy confusedly asked, "What's Scotch?"

Oh Lord give her strength.

With a strong urge to bang her head against a wall, or perhaps hit herself with the rather heavy-looking wrought iron lamp sat next to the whiskey decanter, she clarified, "Your _booze_. Be a good lad and drink up your booze – more matters and all that jazz."

"Uh, I don't think Uisce qualifies as fruit juice...or as a vegetable, for that matter. And stop trying to distract me! I know what you're doing – it's _insulting_."

Hands up in surrender, Mildred said, "Fine, hit me with your best shot – I'm all ears, fire away."

"Where do I even begin?" the boy asked, one hand covering his face. His words came out slightly muffled. "How about, why're you so different? What the hell were you and Mr. Salvatore raving about?"

He dropped his hand now but leaned his head back against the wall. Mildred assumed he didn't want to look at her.

"I mean," he continued ruefully, "I'm not sure I actually _heard_ the word vampire, but I'm not an idiot! Not being able to enter without invitation, it's still daylight out, eating the housekeeper… I know what that makes _me_ think of."

"Okay, one at a time..." she sighed, thinking over how best to answer.

Either she had to do this hard and fast with no finesse, leave him reeling but with the facts, or nudge around the subject and hope a lack of information wouldn't get him killed sooner than later. She also had to do this without a word of 'I'm from another place – a real place – and you're almost certainly a figment of my imagination'. Her body-snatching/coma predicament was _not_ a subject she was willing to broach with anyone right now...if _ever_.

"I'm different because I watched two people die–" which was true, it just wasn't for the most part why _Gloria_ seemed to have changed "–and almost died–" again, true "–and because… I learned something recently, something I didn't want to believe–"

Matt raised incredulous eyebrows, interjecting, "Vampires?"

Yep. That's the one – nail on the head, one-hundred and eighty, bingo, now go claim your prize! It's a stake… A nice, sharp, _really pointy_ wooden stake... And if you don't trust someone then you should stab them in the heart with it.

 _Not_ saying this, she just huffed out a quiet 'yeah'. Matt found this incredibly amusing, judging by the echoing laugh bouncing through the Salvatores' living room.

"You may laugh now, but… Vampires are _scary_ –" _stick close to the truth, make it as real as you can_ – _because it_ _ **is**_ "–and, well, that's kind of the point, I guess. And if I hadn't seen proof with my own two eyes, I wouldn't believe it either. But it is what it is. The world's the world–" _except when it's_ _ **not**_ _anymore "_ –so the best we can do is protect ourselves."

"And this plant you've had us running all over town looking for… I'm guessing it's _not_ for period cramps?" he surmised shrewdly.

"Not exactly," she admitted easily. "You see, vampires can get in your head, make you do stuff... _compel_ you. And they can make you forget they did it, too, so you wouldn't even know it happened. Vervain, the plant Zach grows, stops them from doing it."

"And he puts it in his Uisce?" Matt asked, lifting his glass thoughtfully. Grumbling at it, he complained, "Tastes funny..."

Better funny whiskey than compelled to kill yourself. Hadn't Jenna stabbed herself because a vampire told her to? Mildred thought she had.

Anyway. Matt – vampires – information.

"Yeah, so, _vervain_. You can imbibe it, wear it. Both have pretty much the same main effect – vampire's can't compel you to do stuff for them. Can't get inside your head. Can't get into your dreams."

"Into your _dreams_."

Mildred smiled wanly, taking another mouthful of Scotch. "I don't advise it – shit's a bad trip."

Matt didn't seem to want to touch _that_ pronouncement.

Tiredly, he asked, "How do you know this stuff?" Then, seeming to think better of his question, hastened to add, "I'm not saying I _believe you_ , 'cause I still think your more kinds of crazy than I understand...but if it _were_ true, how would you've found out?"

"Ran into one."

"That's...a short answer."

"Cliff notes. Deal with it, it's all you get for now." All he would _ever_ get, if she had her way. Technically, she'd sucked face with Damon while 'she' and Matt were still dating. "All you really need to know is if you were some vervain then you're mind's your own even if you come across a vampire, and there are more things in heaven and earth than you've dreamed of."

"Like?"

Uh...a _lot_. A whole lot, if this world were accurate _ish_ to the sort of shit in the show.

She gave a half-shrug, saying offhandedly, "Vampires, werewolves, witches, doppelgangers, ghosts...to name a few."

Matt finished off his whiskey in one big swallow after she told him that. He then reverted to disbelieving silence, so she poured them each another drink and hoped the guy wasn't a lightweight – she still needed him to take her home.

Tentatively testing the waters, she inquired, "You believe me, right?"

He didn't answer.

This would all be so much easier if he took Mildred's word on her not being crazy. It wasn't as if _she_ had the ability to take back the argument she'd had with Zach right in front of him – she couldn't just compel away a bad reaction to the truth. Man, that'd be a useful power to have.

When Zach came back carrying a ziplock bag containing some large green leaves and purple-flowered spears within, Mildred took it from him gratefully. She put down her glass and shooed Matt back in the direction of the door. Her friend made his way out onto the driveway in big, slumping steps, getting into the car without a word. Thankfully, he didn't just drive off and leave her there – it would be hard to blame him if he _did_.

"I'm guessing you told him more?" Zach assumed, voice pinched but now more resigned than infuriated. To her nod of an acknowledgment, he asked slightly snidely, "So… Is he preparing to have you committed or is he going to take up whittling?"

"The former."

" _Bad luck_ ," he said cruelly, not sounding sorry at all. There was a strong element of 'serves you right' beneath his words.

Emotionally worn out from the day, she didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she nodded sincerely, saying, "Thank you," holding up the vervain to make it obvious what she was speaking of.

Mildred started down the stairs. Then, after a moment's indecision, turned back to the Boarding House to give Zach some much-needed instruction.

"I'd watch my back if I were you," she advised drolly. _You know, don't piss off any homicidal maniacs with super speed, strength, and a thirsting for human blood...who happen to have precisely no fucks you're a relative of yours._

The man's prior tenseness returned tenfold, eyes sharp and cold. Apparently, certain things bred true in the Salvatore line.

"Why's that, Gilbert?" he almost _snarled_.

Zach was _weird_.

With a saccharine smile, Mildred whispered, "Your _uncle_ 's in town."

Then she turned smartly on her heel and left, climbing into Matt's truck with faint amusement over all the town melodrama that was soon to occur.

Damn, she needed to remember she was _living_ this, not just looking in on it. If she didn't she was going to get herself killed. Probably by trying to be witty and, you know, doing something _really_ dumb like telling a vampire – who would cheerfully snap her neck then whistle off on his way – she was a god. But she'd never do _that_. That was silly – she'd _never_ do it...

As they crossed Wickery Bridge for the fourth time that evening, Mildred idly wondered if Zach would heed her warning. She thought he might have thought she was _threatening_ him, actually. She didn't even really care, at this point; she'd done her good deed – warned him – and gotten out. She had the needed verbena. Zach was useless to her now. If the only living, _human_ Salvatore chose to ignore her, that was _his_ lookout... He should've been nicer.


	10. The Generally Batshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> CHAPTER: Just when Mildred thinks she's sorted, at least temporarily, everything she can realistically sort – kind of – without Damon making his move, everything quickly goes to shit in a quiet way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry – I'm really very sorry...

 

 

 

 

 _june  
_ the generally batshit

 

 

 **For nearly an entire week following Mildred's bungled acquisition of the vervain,** nothing new seemed to go wrong in Mystic Falls. The biggest problem was that several not-good things had been set in motion already.

These things weren't improving any.

For example, Matt, one of her favorite people in this reality, wasn't speaking to her after the incident at the Boarding House. This was a big achievement since _a_ , Matt was happy to speak to practically everyone and _b_ , he still drove her to school each morning; he now did the latter in silence, or humming aggravatedly along to popular dream-world songs whose genre she still couldn't quite place. No matter what she said to try and smooth things over with him, or that her gift of a vervain 'please forgive me' friendship bracelet now protected him, he didn't relent.

Also, last Wednesday the school principal called her into his office to solemnly inform her that, though he fully sympathised with Mildred's special circumstances – and she couldn't help but think he didn't even know the _beginning_ of her 'special circumstances' – it was looking more and more likely she would fail the semester. Principal Adler claimed that, if she didn't buck up her ideas, her GPA was going to drop so low – thanks to a combination of recent poor showing on tests and a string of uncompleted assignments – she would either have to attend some summer classes to make it up or repeat the year. Yay her!

Even better, the man had spoken with Jenna and her aunt was extremely displeased about her poor test scores. This was in spite of the fact the woman had originally maintained Mildred shouldn't go back to school at all, due to the accident. Jenna had planned to have the Gilbert children just study hard in the summer, then take a couple of the specially organized exams that were held in the town hall so they could all head into the correct respective grades still. Mildred was sure her chewing out from Adler – and subsequently Jenna's – was Tanner's fault; everything that went wrong at school was caused by that arrogant busybody one way or another.

So, when it came down to it, the only lights in her day to day life were currently her near-daily excursions to the Forbes household, and little Magda, who regularly accompanied her there.

As it turned out, the littlest Gilbert just _loved_ music, and Caroline, siblingless herself, adored indulging the toddler. She and Mildred had been working hard on a few different songs they could potentially perform at the town talent contest, though all those her friend assumed 'original' were simply purloined from the real-world. Mildred wasn't so much a creator as a performer.

If you were going to make yourself a whole dream-reality, you might as well make it easy to look awesome simply by virtue of everyone else being woefully ignorant of the real-world. Sometimes, when she felt best grounded here, Mildred considered starting up a super-duper tech company to fill in the space Apple's absence left… Then, through her giddy imaginings of becoming a bajillionaire, she would always recall she was technologically-challenged and in a world where she was hardline failing govec – any business plans she may have were probably best left alone.

In an attempt to make her week better, she'd secured herself a place at Mrs. Lockwood's dance studio, which at least gave her something to look forward to once the horror of repeating school was out for the summer.

Other rare plus sides in her life were that, though still sullen and sometimes withdrawn, Jeremy now went out and smiled enough that she didn't feel a gross need to worry over his state of mind. To be fair, she _had_ caught him with a joint a few times but, as far as she could tell, this was a pastime he'd also indulged in _before_ the accident. Mildred didn't have a high level of concern about her brother's relaxation habits. It probably wouldn't do the boy's memory much good if it were a long-term thing, of course, though it was good news he'd started drawing again.

Also of the good was that Mildred hadn't encountered Damon in any more dreams on the rare occasion she stayed at Caroline's, suggesting the vervain was doing its job and keeping him out her head. She hadn't had any more hallucinations of Lucy, either, nor had she felt herself begin to spontaneously combust only to be miraculously healed moments later. Mildred was obviously still troppo – because, you know, she was living in a fantasy world she couldn't wake from – but at least her current level of crazy wasn't that of talking with invisible people or predicting the end of days. She figured, when people in your _fantasy_ thought you'd lost it, _that_ was when you were really in trouble – see 'Matt and the existence of vampires' for details.

Her friends and family had now all, knowingly or not, accepted trinkets or beverages containing vervain. It gave her some peace of mind.

The task of heating the herb in the oven one night had been all too easy, as had adding the resulting crumbly leaves to the loose tea she'd often seen Jeremy, bizarrely enough, drinking in the mornings – he probably would've preferred psilocybin but he'd have to live with what he got. Some of the flowers were pressed into oil, which Mildred mixed into Jenna's various perfumes and moisturizers. Caroline got a string of loosely joined pearls: The girl immediately took them as a token of forever-friendship, declared them both dressy and casual enough to go with _everything_ – much to her friend's delight – and swore to never ever take them off.

Magda, Mildred chose to leave unprotected. This was mainly because a vampire seemed slightly more likely to kill a witness they couldn't compel to forget than one they could. While she would be upset should any member of her adoptive family get hurt, she would be completely _crushed_ if something bad happened to her baby sister.

So...all said, everything that could be expected to be shit was shit, and all she currently had the ability to fix had been fixed.

Five days before her birthday – no matter the world, a birthday was a birthday! – things started to get really strange in Tanner's class. Well, stranger than her life usually was, anyway.

"Now," Tanner said dryly, while Mildred worried about Damon's imminent return to Mystic Falls, "despite having declared themselves politically neutral throughout a large number of conflicts, can anyone tell me what move made by the Britons finally caused Sweden to abandon that neutrality, and during which war this occurred?"

Around her, the class just stared at the bullying, course, _sorry excuse_ for a teacher. Sometimes, when bored, Mildred wondered if the man'd taken Harry Potter a bit too seriously when training for this position. He would have Snape down to a T...if it weren't for the fact Snape was apparently actually _good_ with his subject and happened to serve spy-related services beyond it. As far as she could tell, Tanner was useless all round.

The man gave a heavy, fake sigh when none of his students spoke up. "Really?" he asked in displeasure. " _Nobody_ has an idea? What about you, Mr. Watkins?"

"Uh...the World War?" the stocky boy gambled, fidgeting under Tanner's hard stare.

"Excellent!" the teacher enthused, clapping his hands together and walking back toward the whiteboard. "The World War is quite correct...even if it _was_ a guess. Now, the other part of the question – _why_ did Sweden abandon its neutrality? Come on, come on, look sharp people – it stares at you from a map every day..."

Mildred had no clue. History was way too weird here for her to even begin trying to answer the man's questions. Presumably, her ineptitude in this class was the reason Tanner disliked her so much. She got the impression that, prior to her predecessor's unscheduled departure, Gloria Gilbert had, if not been advanced in this class, at least been polite, attentive and somewhat _liked_ by Tanner.

He still called on Mildred every lesson, even though she was _rubbish_. It was like he hoped she would've studied between lessons or something.

"You, Ms. Gilbert," he predictably drawled, his pointing finger right between her eyes. "Can you tell me what change to a map caused Sweden to join the Allied Forces?"

At this point, she almost wished it was a gun, not a finger. He'd singled her out twice already in the past few weeks, demeaning her in front of the entire class, and she didn't fancy another go.

Resigned to another dressing-down off this immature man, she ventured, "Uh...Forsmark?"

Silence.

Tanner gave a horrific grimace that was probably meant to be a smile. "That's _correct_ , Ms. Gilbert. I see you opened a book recently… Indeed, the historically disputed territory of Forsmark, owned by the British Union but originally colonized primarily by Scandinavian settlers, changed the game for Sweden. The Britons agreed to stop fighting for it, to stop taxing its people unjustly, if Sweden would join the Allies."

Drawing down a previously-rolled wall map, Tanner pointed at Forsmark with a dry-wipe marker. "This shall be our final topic for the year. There were many reasons as to why the Britons – traditionally difficult to negotiate with regarding land ownership, as we in the US are well aware – were willing to..."

Mildred zoned out because, even though the subject was mildly interesting, Tanner's Binns-voice was enough to send even the most dedicated young historian to sleep. Seriously, he should pack up and move to Hogwarts – they had an opening there for a history professor dead like him.

Urgh, fuck history, she had bigger problems. Like the fact she'd literally _invited_ Damon to come see her on her birthday.

Back when she'd done that – only a couple of weeks ago but it felt like _years_ – it had been under the influence of a lot of lust, assuming she was in a dream. Well, she _was_ in a dream, but she'd logically assumed would _wake up_ in short order. This hadn't happened.

Now Damon was going to come back for sure. Mildred wasn't certain why she was so...well, _certain_ the deal made on the road had been a serious one that the vampire _would_ see through. Just...something niggled in the back of her mind, telling her she ought to prepare for their inevitable confrontation. Plus, he _was_ definitely around – he'd snuck into her dreams a not that long ago and compelled poor Caroline into a bit of a confused mess. Mildred would've cautiously labeled him an unfriendly just for the compulsion alone, let alone for the dreamscapades in the night.

Question was, what did Damon want with her? The novelty of her Catherineness must be part of it and that bit didn't worry her. Worrying her was what the obsession he had for the ancient vampiress might cause him to _do_. He could use Mildred as a fuck and feed like he had Caroline on TV – or he could _try_ , at least, not knowing she was up to her gizzards on vervain – and subtly torment her until she didn't know whether she was coming or going. He could hurt her for looking like the woman he loved and lost, or, in lieu of that, hurt the rest of the Gilberts for daring to be 'related' to her. The man was a complete wildcard, really, flirting with the area of a character-chart labeled 'chaotic evil'.

"Psst..."

God, why is she even in this mess?

_**'Cause this world's a cake and you gotta believe it.** _

                                                                                            " _Psst!"_

Mildred sighs, frowns, fiddles with the split-ended hair at the bottom of her plait.

                At the desk next to her, a fellow classmate continues going  _psst_...  
Like they are a gas leak and they want to make sure she knows about it.

"By the One Ring, think Tanner's the biggest bore I've ever seen…  
If the speakers on my compusci'd been like this, I'd've had to  
drop out or be risking sudden death from terminal boredom  
                                        – future in a gutter be damned."

Mr. Tanner hasn't reacted to the girl's hissing insults toward him;  
nor has anyone else in the classroom. He just drones on and on,  
so monotone Mildred can honestly say she agrees that his voice  
could probably be used as an effective execution method should  
any government be inclined to test it.

      "Gotta tell you, surprised you're still listening to this douche.  
If'n you decided you want a bit of better butter, you know where I'm at..."

                       Wait...Mildred _knows_ this voice. It's _not_ one of the other students.

       When she glances over, she finds not the quiet Asian girl she's been sitting next  
  to since Matt ditched her – the one who works at Marcia's – but her old friend Lucy...  _again_.  
Obviously, Mildred spoke too soon when she said at least she wasn't hallucinating anymore. Clearly,  
                                                                               she still _is_ , just not with regular frequency. _Just fantastic._

                                  "Hey, _Tanner_!" Lucy calls out loudly, the name stretching out low and heavy in her accent.  
     Adopting some kind of, uh, gangsterish voice – and doing a very poor job at it – the woman exclaims,  
              "Tanner, muh homie, I put a griddle on yo shizzle so you can waffle while you waffle!"

 _What the fuck!_ Is Lucy _trying_ to get her in trouble?

                "Shhh!" Mildred hissed, eyes fixed on her friend's normal-looking, if thoroughly out of place face.  
"Fuck," she mutters under her breath, "Tanner'll _hear_ you! What are you _doing_ here? You can't be here – not _here_ , not _now_!"

         Lucy chuckles irreverently – she sounds so much like Damon in that moment it makes Mildred shudder.

          "Now's the only time I got for the moment," the other woman says.  
                        "Been chasing your crumble all week. You know–"  
the redhead waggles a carefully-manicured finger agitatedly  
"–you're one hard cookie to track. After all this is  
done with, I reckon I'll qualify to head up  
                  the RDW Division."

Doing her best to ignore the hallucination – no good can come of it – Mildred squints at Tanner's map of North America.  
Something the man's doing to it is making wavy arrows change the borders of countries...presumably to demonstrate  
how they've shifted in the last couple of hundred years?

Pretending Lucy isn't there – because she _isn't_ – doesn't help. The woman chatters away loudly, as she always  
has, ignored by everyone else in the class. Yeah, she's a hallucination, right? Which means only _Mildred_  
can see her.

"I've been looking for you since that parking lot. Gotta put a sorry out for that, by the way –  
didn't realize my presence would be so destructive or I'd never've touched you.  
Donatello says I shouldn't've been there like that, no without my Image.  
Rookie mistake, that. It's 'non-traditional and dangerous' he says  
– it does _things_ , apparently.

                                                  "Anyhoo, since then  
I've been looking for you everywhen and where,  
but my Image is – all my b-side Distortions,  
actually – a bit...frickin' catty, for want  
of a harsher term.

"I've been _all over_ worlds  
with proper vampires and magic –  
kept running into yous who weren't _you…_  
or Distortions of yours that weren't _you_ , anyways.

"Seriously, it's been way freakish. Guess the Gilbert gals are  
twinnies in most of them worlds. So far, I've knocked up a Deliah and  
Irayna – over in five-b, funny place – a Morena and Elena – you do _not_ want  
to see Mystic Falls in _that_ one, trust me – and a Diedre… Last was damn  
depressing – girl's a wreck, dead sisters and–"

                                                                                 "Keira's dead..." Mildred whispers against her will,  
finally breaking her old friend's rambling. Then she goes stock still and chastises herself,  
_Don't interact with hallucinations...and never in_ _public_ _.  
Honestly, hasn't TV taught you anything?_

 _ **No answering that**_ **,** Lucy advises seriously, _**wait for your lawyer.  
**_          Then: "Who's Keira?"

Going against her better judgment, she fills her hallucinatory-friend in.  
"My twin sister here – _Gloria's_ sister. Look, I don't know why you're here,  
what's going on, but I've got this class..."

 _And if I keep at this, people'll notice me talking to nothing, going to think I'm_ –

"Stark raving bonkers? Few cards short a deck, a basket case, Observatorium's  
missing its telescope? And, _what's going on_ is this world's closed up for business!  
You've gone and bricked it so hard Walkers can't fiddle right here anymore. There's  
some major league outrage through the Order bigwigs about that one, just believe me."

"The Order of the Phoenix?" Mildred asks bemusedly.

Damn, she _knew_ she shouldn't've spent so much time contemplating Tanner's possible career  
as Hogwarts' new history professor. As a big dreamer, Mildred knows full well how your thoughts  
carry over into your dreams… This _also_ seems to be true for hallucinations.

"The Order of Dreamwalkers, you dimwit," Lucy groans exasperatedly. Under her breath, the woman  
sarcastically adds, "'Order of the Phoenix', _honestly_? ...Everyone knows that's a b-side thing."

"Well, if you're just going to– Wait! There's a _real_ Order of the Phoenix?"

Lucy elegantly shrugs one shoulder. "Sure, lot's of them, too. Seven or eight on  
the top-tier at least, by my last reckoning."

                                                                        Now uncaring of what her  
                                                              classmates will think of her –  
                                                        probably that she gave up  
                                                  on life because of Tanner's  
                                          dull dull lecture  
                                                                    – Mildred lets her head flop onto the desk.  
  
                                                      It really fucking hurts.  
  
                       It's still less painful as her hallucinatory-friend's idea of small talk.

      "Oh God..." she mumbles into her blank notepad, "I'm totally insane, completely cuckoo,  
                              round the twist, got roos loose in the north paddock–"

                   "Pencils up your nose, underpants on your head – just say 'wibble'?"

          Head rolling to the side, she peers up at Lucy tiredly.  
     "No can do… No Blackadder in la-la land – no Stephen Fry."

"Whoa – totally sucks… Anyhoo, now for something completely different –  
you think you're crazy but...not so much..." Lucy assures in her most serious voice.

             Her tone sets off klaxons in Mildred's mind –  
nothing good's about to happen when her friend gets _serious_.

"Nobody ever prepared you for this, did they?" the redhead asks kindly, resignedly.  
"Well, not _this_ specifically, 'cause I'm gonna be Frankie with you here and tell you  
– this ain't exactly _normal_ , never been done like _this_ 'fore now. But nobody ever  
told you what you _are_? I mean, how _could_ they? I wasn't even sure till… Well,  
till you got your cutest little butt stuck here, I wasn't even sure you was one  
of _us_ – not always so easy to tell, you know? Not like we've got ourselves  
Boltish speed or mad telekinesis...nothing noticeable. Usually, the Order  
tries to keep a track on families, but sometimes people'll get a smatter  
lost and–"

                   "Sargent!" Mildred exploded, having enough of this deep level of her subconscious' word-vomit.

This imaginary woman sure talks like the real thing; that's because she herself knows her friend so damn well.  
Now Lucy's halted her confusing tirade, Mildred takes the opportunity to try and make sense of what her hallucinatory-friend has said so far.

 _ **Now**_ _ **there's**_ _**a sentence worthy of being carted off to the funny farm.**_

                                "As if I don't know that!" Mildred snaps angrily.  
                              "It's not like I suddenly decided one day 'Hey, I know what I should do –  
                            a quickstep off the springboard of reality.  
                         Good place to land? Happy-go-lucky vampire world!  
_That_ would really cheer up my long,  
                    going-nowhere, monotonous life  
                 of half-rate matinee and bemonocled chumps telling  
               me to _give it more feeling_ '."

                                Drawing a shaky  
           breath, she puts on her best  
         voice over imitation, "Screw  
        matinee, try metanoia – the  
      new, top-of-range selection of machine-elf-worthy  
     brainsplosions… They will literally blow you onto  
                              a whole new plane of existence!"

Lucy just laughs. Fuck her twisted, uncaring soul.

"Fine – keep at it, chuckles," Mildred grumbles.  
"Truth is, you're not the one who's brain's _soup_.  
When was the last time _you_ woke up in Cloudland?"

A perfectly curved eyebrow cocked, her friend casually  
responds, "Kinda right now."

 _Of course_...because _that_ makes sense.

Inpatient and confused – a poor combination at the best of times  
             – Mildred pushes on in her quest for answers from not-Lucy.  
                           "One of _who_?" she asks, referring back to her friend's  
                                                                previous rambling 'explanations'.  
                                             "Keeping track of _who_ , 'us' _who_?"

                                                                                                       "Doctor _Who_?"

Resisting the urge to slam her head against the desk, Mildred groans.  
" _Yeah_ , that's _just_ what I'm asking you. I need you to borrow me your  
Radio Times again – my interdimensional internet connection's  
been flaky!"

                     A winning smirk across her face, Lucy drawls,  
"I've told you it before, get your _own_ subscription. You  
slopped coffee over it last time – not like I can just  
pop down the street and grab a newun. Gotta  
                 have it shipped over 'specially."

"Why do I even bother talking to you?"

"'Cause I'm the best that's ever been!  
 You know you'd be lost without me."

Mildred huffs derisively, feeling so displaced and confused that the external display of  
these things is nullified – there comes a point when there's _no_ point railing against the  
insanity of it all. Is this how Matt took it last week, when she and Zach Salvatore made  
it clear they both believe in bloodsucking monsters? No wonder the boy won't speak to  
her – he felt out his depth and she's done little to _really_ bring him up to speed.  
                                                                      She'll have another chat with him.

"Look, I know you've questions," Lucy states gently, twisting in her seat. "There's no way  
_you_ even can be so apathetic to this you don't need them answers. I'm here to give them  
to you – weren't 'ticularly easy to break through the walls, so no point wasting more of our  
time… By the way – nice job on fucking this place up. You told _Matt_ about vampires?  
                                                                                                               Yeesh – _ouch_."

Ignoring the last comment, already well aware how dim she is, Mildred settles for, "Questions  
about _what_? About why the hell I'm stuck in vampire-wonderland, who this Order of yours is,  
why my subconscious keeps throwing you at me? 'Cause yeah, course I have questions  
about that, but–" she shoots her longtime friend a baleful look "–since when have _you_  
been capable of giving a straight answer to anything?"

                                                                                           "Since _now_. Too important  
to be beating round the bush – the situation's a serious one," Lucy declares, looking  
extremely sober for once. "So, in reverse order – it's not your subconscious…  
Or, well, it _is_ your subconscious 'cause you're dreaming–"

" _Really?_ Hadn't figured that one out yet."

                                                                                          "–but I'm not  
                                                                        an aspect of _you_ , a dream-thing, I'm real  
                                                        – I've independent thought, I know things you don't.  
                                                       I'm a real, _separate_ person. I'm _not_ your imagination."

                                  "That's exactly what a hallucination _would_ say," Mildred deadpans.

               "How can a prove it to you I'm real? This'd go a lot smoother if you trusted me."  
  
 Shrugging, Mildred suggests, "I don't know – tell me something I couldn't possibly know."

Her friend rolls her eyes like that's a predictable and pointless suggestion.  
"To what ends? I tell you something about _our_ world, you've got no way of  
confirming I'm not spewing bullshit. I tell you something about _this_ world,  
you confirm it alright but – and here's the kicker – convince yourself you  
want me real so bad your subconscious has _changed_ your 'dream' to fit  
what I told you… Can't win."

       That… Well, that makes a lot of sense...and sounds _exactly_ like the  
        twisted ass kind of psycho-logic Lucy often comes out with. Though  
         she's always been able to follow the other woman's trains of thought  
          to a certain degree, she's never been capable of _producing them herself_ ;  
           if her subconscious is producing them _now_...  either she's in possession  
            of deeper, less vapid levels than she's been aware of until now, or Lucy  
              really _is_ a separate entity capable of thinking for herself.

                                                                                       "Okay, say I believe you..."  
                               she ventures slowly, eyes narrowing at her real-world friend,  
                         "What would you tell me about this situation? Could you explain  
_why_ I'm in a messed up dream-world?"

                "Well, _if_ you believe me, I would tell you this  
_isn't_ a dream-world at all. Or, it _is_ but not for  
        you – not for people _from_ here. It's only a  
  dream for people from _other_ worlds, yeah?"

"Thanks… It'd be really annoying if you didn't make any sense."

"You've never gotten my mind's workings," Lucy laments. "Okay, this is how it is,"  
she tries again, beginning to make weird gestures with her hands. "Here's–" she displays  
one level hand, palm side down "–the world you know, the world we both of us come from, right?  
The year's twenty-sixteen, the Twin Towers're so much dust in the wind, and the Falcon's've never won  
the Super Bowl – this hand's _our_ world. With me so far?"

                      "Okay..."

"Right, and _this_ is where you're living _now_ –"  
she explains, putting her other hand below the first, this time palm up against it like she was  
preparing to play snapsies "–on the b-side. This of the world's iterations is pretty familiar,  
close to ours in shape and color, excepting it packs way more of a magical punch. It's  
got vampires and wizards and big destinies and stuff… I still got you?"

" _Yeeaaaah_ yea– No, not a bit."

"Alright, alright," Lucy hurries, pulling forward a piece of paper  
and drawing a crude skyscraper. "This here's our world. And this–" she draws  
a mirror-image skyscraper below the first "–is _this_ world you're in, right?  
They're similar but different, inextricable, connecting to each other."

The woman draws a brown horizontal line between the two  
buildings and a pair of arrows, one pointing up at the sky  
and the other pointing down at...not the ground but a  
_different_ sky.

"Like this here's our world, so this one up here's world _A_...  
and this one down here's world _B_ – reflections of each other,  
like a postcard of the New York skyline mirrored by the sea.  
Personally, I like to think of it as an LP universe – there's  
an a-side and a b-side – both exist at the same time  
but you can only play one at a go. We're from  
this a-side up here, and you've managed  
to get yourself stuck down here on  
the b-side…

     "Am I making _any_ sense?"

"Kind of, I guess," Mildred frowns dubiously, prodding at the upside-down  
skyscraper, "but not at all. If I was stuck down here, in the not-world–"

"It's _not_ a not-world – it's a _real_ world, just not the real-world _we're_ from."

             "Okay… But if I've gotten stuck down here, then… How? _Why?_ "

"Well, that's bringing us to your second question – what the Order of Dreamwalkers is."

              Lucy leans back in her chair, giving off a completely relaxed air;  
Mildred finds herself on edge again, sensing the lack of tension is _forced_.

"Basically," the other woman begins, "our world has something akin to magic  
– not really proper magic or anything, 'cause there's only so much of that to go  
around, needed to keep the universe operating, and all most of it's on the b-sides…  
But some people can tap into it, are...magical. Okay, it's really more a sensitivity, an  
atypical neural state–"

                                      "Like a mutation?"

                                                                         "Yeah, if you like it. Some people are capable  
of _spying_ into other worlds – most just into their Images or their Meanwhiles, sometimes even  
their Distortions if they're really gifted. Some of us can get into other heads, people not _counterparts_  
at all – you've gotta learn that if your counterparts're... _difficult_."

                                                                                                      "You've lost me. Meanwhiles, Distortions, Images?"

"We'll come to that if'n you get the basics of the thing. What you're needing to know for now is _this_ – everybody  
on the a-side has a direct counterpart on the reverse, the b-side. A counterpart they're born with, an equal  
and opposite, a balance… A soulmate, kind of. A Walker can easily get into the minds of their counterparts,  
see through their eyes, play with what's going on in other worlds a bit."

                                "You mean that...these people can visit other worlds, body-snatch and change stuff?"

"Not really… I mean, _yeah_ , they're using other body's, visiting counterparts' lives, but even where the  
situations're real, they're _not_ actually _in_ the other world – their peering into it in their dreams. You're  
just sleeping, your mind makes an exact copy of the other world  
– local events only, probably, otherwise your brain'd explode with the struggle. Anything you do  
while there doesn't _really_ happen – or it _does_ but it doesn't hold, it snaps back the minute the  
Walker wakes.

                               Lids closed, eyes crossed below that, Mildred tries desperately to find  
her calm. Breathing in and out slowly, staving off the panic and kill-me-now frustration,  
she sighs out, "I suppose you're telling me _I'm_ some kind of dream traveler–"

                                                                  "Dream _walker_ ," Lucy corrected absently.  
Clearly aiming to break the dour mood with humor, she quips, "We wanted _just_  
Traveler but it was taken. And yeah, obviously it's what we're getting at here…  
You're one of us 'mutie' freaks – really, I prefer _sensitives_ or superhumans.  
               We see into other worlds, travel into our various counterparts."

                                                                    " _Various_ counterparts?"

                                       "A conversation for another day.  
              The point of all this mess is, right at its co–"

" _GILBERT!"_

                           The room distorts  
  
                 a shimmering rainbow rippling across it as when pressure is applied to an LCD panel.  
  
  Spinning dizzyingly   
                                         her flesh is particles revolving around a void  
                           or the waterspout above an emptying plughole.

                        Lucy _d_ like sugar in hot water  
                                    _i_  
                                      _s_  
                                        _s_  
                                      _o_  
                                      _l_  
                                      _v_  
_e_  
             _s_  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn it! I apologised already, didn't I?


	11. All About Tanner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: Things are getting heavy...and annoying and pointless. As if the day hadn't been bad enough so far, now everyone – including herself – is being overly verbose. She…she just thinks she'd like to go home now.

 

 

 

 _june  
_ all about tanner

 

 

**Startled, Mildred jolted upright in her chair.**

                    When had she even slipped down?

"Sleep on your _own_ time, Ms. Gilbert!" Tanner barked. The man was leaning over her with a sickly gleam in his eyes that gave her the impression of a sadistic predator mocking its prey before the kill. "I reluctantly accept North American historical political border changes is not a subject to capture the interest of many young vagrants of this generation, but _do_ try to at least give me the _illusion_ of your attention."

    She'd fallen asleep in class?

Then...Lucy had never actually _been_ here. Fuck – her dreams were getting weirder and weirder. At least it wasn't another hallucination, she supposed.

Mr. Tanner was staring at her, waiting for a response.

Mildred nodded, forgetting what he'd said. She feigned embarrassment, saying as sincerely as she could, "I'm very sorry, sir. It won't happen again."

The man clucked his tongue condescendingly as he turned away. "See that it doesn't."

What the hell had just happened? She'd fallen _asleep_ in class? When she wasn't even _tired_?

It was easy to admit that, in the days following the Damon Dreamcrasher incident she'd barely slept a wink, and when she had it was unwillingly, for short periods at random times. Ever since getting the vervain from Zach, though, she'd been sleeping straight through every night – deeply, _restfully_ at that. Mildred _wasn't_ running on fumes, she'd not been having horrific nightmares, so _why_ did she just pass out at school? Sure, Tanner's lectures were tedious – not really comforting enough to actually lull her into _unconsciousness_ , though.

Then there was Lucy, the dream who insisted she was a real person – exactly what a weird dreamform _would_ say.

What a joke, throwing a copy of her real best-friend at her, having the woman ramble on and on, claiming to be giving a rational explanation as to what was going on with la-la land but not actually clearing anything up at all. To be fair, it _was_ a damn good imitation of Lucy's character, though that wasn't surprising seeing as they'd been friends for over a decade. It was annoying, though. _Lucy_ , that was – Lucy was annoying.

 _Fucking obnoxious bitch_ , Mildred groused to herself, equal parts fond and sour.

Almost back to the front of the class, Tanner stopped all of a sudden. Shoulders stiff but vibrating lightly, the man turned around slowly, threateningly… The look on his face was thunderous, belying the cold, tightly steady voice in which he incredulously asked, " _What_ did you just say to me?"

Nothing.

Or… Oh shit, had she said that _out loud_?

Shuffling in her seat, Mildred hastened to dig herself out this one. "Um... _nothing_ , Mr. T," she claimed with a fake grin and perky tone she knew wouldn't fool anyone – it really wasn't _meant_ to. "Just what a wonderful, interesting lesson this has been."

Her expression and words might not have been intended to be the least bit convincing...but if she was going down, she could at least keep the other students on her side by getting a laugh out of them. Given the way this town was scheduled to fall to pieces in the next couple of years, she was sure they could use all the humorous memories they could get. Perhaps Matt might even speak to her again after this, seeing as he – like most the student body – hated Tanner with a passion usually reserved for things like dog shit on your front porch and people who cheat on their taxes.

Despite the sea of sniggers and quietly amused expressions around the room, not _everyone_ was content to sit in Mildred's corner.

_Suck ups._

On the other side of the class, Meredith habitually flipped her hair. "That's not what she said at all, Mr. Tanner," the girl said snidely. "What she _said_ was that you're an effing obnoxious female dog… Isn't that right, _bestie_?"

The girl shot her a smug, payback's-a-bitch sort of look, causing Mildred to glower in return. For someone who'd allegedly been Gloria's best-friend since kindergarten and was a bit offended because she'd been mistakenly snubbed a couple of times, Meredith sure was petty about it.

"That will be a detention, I think, Miss Gilbert. Though your present situation may be somewhat special, and it is, of course, admirable you have returned to lessons so soon after such tragedy, that does _not_ – I repeat, _does not_ – suggest you have the leeway to use such foul language in the classroom, and certainly not directed at _me_ – your instructor."

As this was pretty much what Mildred had expected from him, she was happy to just sit there and smile wanly. "Yes, Mr. Tanner."

When the lunch bell rang, the man held her back. She was hungry and aggravated by not just her foolishness of having fallen asleep in class, but also the confusing nature of the dream she'd had. Naturally, she didn't particularly want to turn one detention into a week's worth, so she held her tongue. One punishment was bad enough – she was brushing _thirty_ in the real-world, for Pete's sake! Between Tanner and Aunt Jenna, Mildred's self-esteem was taking a real knock.

"You've never been particularly special in history, Miss Gilbert," Mr. Tanner began condescendingly, "but you _have_ always at least _tried_ to learn, which is more than I can say for the majority of your classmates. The quality of your written essays has always been good, it's clear you are accomplished at researching the given topics, though you continue to score poorly on examinations.

"That's all fine.. I hold no aggrandizement of the human mind and the ability some have – or in this case, do _not_ have – to recall on demand dates and the names and lives of historical figures they probably don't give a dime about. What I _am_ disappointed by is your sudden lack of enthusiasm for my lessons. I cannot claim your other teachers haven't complained you display the same ailment in their classes, also."

Well...duh… Mildred's – no... _Gloria's_ – parents just died a few weeks ago. Surely some lassitude, some depression and inability to concentrate on learning, was expected?

"There has been talk of failing you for the year – something which, you may be surprised to hear, I have spoken out against. A couple of flunked tests in these circumstances don't really reflect your abilities as a whole. As far as I'm concerned you shouldn't be in class at all – as my father-in-law often says, 'work never ceases but the hands crave time'. Do you know what that means, Miss Gilbert?"

Exasperated, her thoughts suggested, _That you really, **really** like the sound of your own voice. _ Outwardly she just meekly shook her head.

"It means that," Tanner elucidated, "even though your mind says you should, and wants to, move on, and may run through life on autopilot following tragedy, the parts which actually allow you to function fully take far longer to acclimatize to their new reality."

The man leaned back on his desk, looking down at her in a way he probably thought was soft, comforting, but actually just came across as pompous and patronizing.

"I'm willing to let this incident mostly slide...but I don't want to see you back in my classroom until next year – as a senior at that," he said. "This is if – and _only_ if – you complete an extensive, very detailed summer essay for me. I will be providing you with a textbook and I wish for you to use any further resources available to you through your family to conduct deeper research of your own."

Blindsided, Mildred gave a weird, acquiescing half-shrug, mumbling, "Uh...sure. What book, what subject?"

Ten minutes later she was in the cafeteria, staring down at the given textbook with a mix of horror and begrudging interest. It had, as was common in this dream-world, a semi-sepia cover; it was an old photograph of Main Street at a funny angle, showing, at one edge, the clocktower where it sat near the town square. Through text so florid it was hard to read, Mildred was offered the intriguing title _The Insanity of the Founders: Fact and Fiction, Fantasy and Folklore in Mystic Falls._ In smaller, far more legible print was the less encouraging _William Tanner Faust._

Great. The bastard had given her _his own_ book to work from. By the look of it, especially considering the publishing date, it was probably the man's thesis. God, what an egotistical dickwad. Oh well...at least it was going to get her out of history for the rest of the semester! Though, thinking about it, she wasn't sure if she still needed to go to Tanner after class for detention – he hadn't made that clear. No history though – score!

"Hey," greeted Caroline, sliding into a seat beside her. She was in her cheer uniform and her usually bouncy hair was set into a tight bun. "Heard you got detention from Tanner – what happened, did you tell him his pants are a crime to fashion? 'Cause that's totally true, they went out of style at least a decade ago… He should be kissing your feet for looping him in!"

 _Ah, Caroline…_ Mildred thought with fond exasperation, the dark cloud above her head receding somewhat.

"So… What _did_ you do?"

"Well, first I fell asleep while he was talking… And he may or may not think I called him a 'fucking obnoxious bitch'. What _actually_ happened was I thought out loud by mistake..."

Caroline pulled Mildred's unopened fruit pack toward herself. "Who were you thinking about?"

"Uh...no one in particular," she hedged, having no intention of answering, _My real-world friend Lucy. She visited me in a dream and started raving about something sounding like parallel universes shit from the back articles of Sci-fi Junkies Weekly._

Following Mildred's completely random, unfocused gaze, her friend seemed to come to her own conclusion. "Metal Meredith, yeah? Urgh, she's way bitchy – and a skanky _liar_ , too. You know, while you were off school because... _you know_ , she tried to claim my boots were _hers_ and I'd _stolen_ them from the changing rooms! I mean, _come on,_ these are vintage Corkery… There's no way she'd be able to afford the zipper of a brand new pair, let alone a pair like _this_."

Amused by her friend's vitriol, Mildred glanced down at the shoes in question; there were indeed nice ones, sewn of soft deerskin and decorated with hand-embroidered flowers. Caroline could be pretty bitchy sometimes but it was hard to find fault when her disregard was almost always directed at people who weren't particularly pleasant themselves.

Over the cafeteria, Cheer Girl was sitting with the jocks. Most the table were openly laughing as another girl basically climbed Tyler Lockwood like a tree. Now, Mildred wasn't that shy herself when it came to sex – even if her love life had always been kind of pathetic – but even _she_ didn't think the lunch hall was a suitable place to get lucky. She sure wouldn't have _dared_ do that back when she was at high school (the first time).

"Urgh, get a _room_ ," Caroline sneered, also watching them. "Vickie used to be really nice – she always helped out with town projects, she was smart, pretty… _Now_ look at her. I swear there's something wrong with that girl. She's practically _undressing_ – what a slut."

Mildred frowned but didn't disagree.

"Anyway, what's with the book?" the blond asked, changing the subject. "Oh gosh – is this _Tanner's_ book? Tell me he's not making you _read_ it? That's, like, a fate worse than death!"

"I have to do a summer essay on it if I want to get out of history for the rest of the year. Obviously, I wasn't going to turn _that_ deal down."

"Um, Glore, school's out in _two days_. Do you even _have_ history tomorrow?"

When did school let out again… Checking her planner, Mildred saw the semester ended on June 21st. _Today_ was June 19th.

"What the hell! That bastard _tricked_ me," she exclaimed petulantly.

Caroline nodded sympathetically, though half her expression said quite clearly just how stupid she thought Mildred was. "He does that sometimes – pretends to be nice and then _bam_ , summer essays on his book."

"He said it was that or detention."

"Urgh, you should go back and just take the detention," her friend suggested dismissively, popping a grape in her mouth. "Like, seriously, he always tricks at least _one_ student into doing that essay over break. He actually used to _threaten_ us with just having to read that thing back in freshman. It's super-thick, super-boring, and super- _insulting_ … I mean, it totally implies insanity's hereditary in Founding Families – I can't believe he's having _you_ do it. Sure, he caught Tina Fell last semester, but she's _dumb_ so..." 

Caroline shrugged.

Lips turning downward as she gave the book the evil eye, her friend complained, "But _you..._  He only got _you_ because you've been so, you know, _blah_ with everything going on. That's like preying on your while your down... _Rude!_ He should give us a bit more respect, our families built this town! And it's not like you should be getting detention anyway. What's _wrong_ with him – you're parent's _died_ last month."

This seemed to be a subject the blond was passionate about. It wasn't surprising – Caroline was big on the Founders stuff and a bit of a snob. She was loveable for it, though, because she also had a heart of pure gold and always meant well.

So instead of pointing out how half of her friend's rant came across, Mildred just shrugged. "It seemed better than actually spending two hours in his explicit company. Sure, he _could_ just make me write lines – knowing Tanner, though, he'd give me something like a private lecture on the history of the water wheel from BC to date..."

"Point. I swear, that guy can ruin _anything_. I mean, the Vikings're pretty interesting, right, and really important to our history – blood kings and warrior queens and battles, and they settled North A before Ameryk's toadies, and they had all these great stories with loads of sex and murder and magic… And somehow he makes it really _dull_ ," Caroline complained.

"Just two days," the girl added, sounding giddy. "Two days and school's out – two blissfully Tanner-free months."

Her friend sighed wistfully and Mildred found herself grinning. Going through high school a second time wasn't fun but Caroline was genuinely a good friend. It was a shame the girl wasn't real – Mildred would miss her when she finally woke up in reality.

"Oh look, Meredith's leaving with _Vickie_. See, _what did I tell you_ – Bennett's really let herself go... Look at the _company she keeps_."

Again, Mildred found herself frowning across the cafeteria. Meredith Sulez was leading Tyler's girlfriend out of the hall, hissing furiously in the girl's ear. Vickie's long, sable brown hair, falling in smooth waves, and heart-shaped face made her rather pretty. She had a nice body, too… Which Mildred was now aware of because the girl's heaving chest was partially on display through the loose cardigan Cheer Girl had wrapped about her.

When the two girls were gone, she and Caroline turned to look at one another – the latter disgustedly.

"Was she actually _half-undressed_?"

Eyes wide, Mildred nodded. "Uh huh – guess there's no such thing as decency… You know what, let's just forget it, I nee–"

"Forget it! No way, _everybody_ should know how skanky Vickie Bennet's gotten."

"Care, I love you – but drop it. Besides, I need to go get books for my next class. And I'm going to have to think up a plan to deal with frickin' Tanner. There's no way I'm happy about his 'deal' now I _know_ I'm getting screwed over. You coming?"

The blond shook her head, claiming to already have her books. Her friend wished her luck on Tanner-strats and went back to staring at the jocks across the hall. Mildred would bet her last cream cake it was mainly Matt who was being observed. Caroline _so_ fancied him. She wasn't even subtle about it.

The afternoon classes passed slowly, giving her a lot of time to consider the most recent in a series of 'dream incidents' – or 'dream _within_ dream incidents' if she were getting technical. If waking up in TV-land hadn't been bad enough, there'd been the issue of Damon invading one of her nightmares; that had been coming up on two weeks ago now and nothing particularly unusual had occurred with her in the interim. With _Lucy_ now showing up in her dreams, Mildred was starting to realize she had a real problem. Yes, it was mildly preferable to the occasion she, Matt and Caroline had gone to White Oak, where Lucy had turned up in an honest-to-God, wide-awake _hallucination…_ but still… This was far from an ideal situation.

Just as vexing was that she was due to attend a post-trauma session with a therapist next week, and she found herself wondering what on earth she was supposed to say to him. It was all well and good to take advantage of the patient confidentiality they were supposed to have, but it seemed pretty likely that if she unloaded the full weight of her 'delusions' on him, she'd quickly find herself in some sort of closed facility.

On the other hand, theoretically everyone encountered in this world should represent some part of her subconscious. With that in mind, it was entirely possible any therapist she visited would actually be very helpful and could possibly even aid her escape from this crazy scenario. Of course, because Mildred's dreams always tended to be anally accurate, that possibility still didn't preclude ending up as a shut-in; dreaming or not, real or not, institutionalization wasn't her idea of a good time.

Then there was the very present problem of her lucid dreamathon. If her _Luci_ nation was to be trusted, then this place wasn't a _dream_ at all, it was the _real world…_

Or was that an _alternate_ or _parallel_ world?

She didn't know. The conversation hadn't exactly been easy to make head or tails of, so she wasn't precisely clear on what her 'friend' had been getting at; what _did_  seem obvious to Mildred was that her subconscious was reaching out to her, trying to get her to understand something. Perhaps the whole thing wound down to the idea she needed to accept this reality as it came, to treat it like she did real-life?

But hadn't she been _doing_ that for the most part?

Well... _no_ , because while she definitely treated her 'family' as a real family and 'friends' as _real_ friends, she wasn't really taking this whole thing very seriously. She was behaving like...there was no future here.

Mildred didn't think there _was_ a future for her in this world, so why should she bother with things like assignments, or fixing problems that arose with her peers, or actually making some proper headway on Uncle John's directive to prove she wanted to go into performing? Instead, she was treating the whole experience the way one would a vacation to Vegas – as if nothing she did had any real consequences and she might wake up any day now.

Would she ever wake? What if she was in something like a _permanent_ coma? She sure hoped she wasn't on life-support out in the real-world; her father wouldn't be able to afford to keep it on indefinitely… What would happen if life-support was turned off, if she died in reality?

 _If you die in_ _ **reality**_ _then you're dead, dumbass – that's why they call it_ _ **reality**_ _._

Yeah, Mildred was pretty sure that was her inner-Lucy channeling a bit of Dream Lord-spun wisdom. No matter the source, the question still hung uncomfortably between those lines: What would happen if she died in the _dream_?

By the time she met back up with Caroline out the front of the school, she was no closer to forming even _one_ serious conclusion about anything. To be fair, though, this wasn't exactly a normal or simple situation to deal with; Mildred felt she'd been doing quite well with it all so far. Most people would be in a padded cell by this point, or would've decided nothing mattered anymore and postaled their way into a high-security prison. If this Unreality debacle lasted too long, she might purposefully end up doing the latter – just to spice things up a bit.

"Hey, you okay?" Caroline wondered, worrying her lip and placing a hand on Mildred's arm.

Blinking rapidly to try and clear her head, Mildred stared at the other girl. Caroline was _very_ close – in such a way it could be considered nearly as indecent as Vickie was earlier – and once again she found herself surprised by just how _beautiful_ the blond was. It was little wonder she would be crowned Queen of Mystic Falls when that pageant came around.

"I'm fine," Mildred eventually sighed, even though she knew her tired, overused acting abilities wouldn't fake out her friend. "I guess I just...need to sleep."

Caroline's brow rose. "Well, you _did_ nap in history," she pointed out. "Haven't you been getting any at night?"

"No, no – I'm sleeping just fine..."

"You're sleeping okay but you're _tired_. So believable."

"Uh..." It was sort of hard to explain to a bouncy, perpetually cheerful girl like Caroline the concept of being tired right down to your bones, your soul, for emotional reasons rather than physical ones. For this reason, Mildred decided to mollify rather than argue. She sighed again and said, "Perhaps your right – maybe I'm _not_ sleeping enough."

"Well, there's Matt," she observed, gesturing across the parking lot. "He'll get you home and you go straight to bed."

It wasn't a suggestion but an order.

Against the peeling blue paint of his pickup, Matt's face was stony as he stared at she and Caroline. He still wasn't speaking to her generally, though neither had he run to Jenna or someone and told them Mildred had gone fucking crazy. Apparently, their friendship was strong enough to afford her some protection from that fate.

"He's still being weird. Are you ever going to give me the dets on what happened there? If he did something to hurt you, I can totally beat his ass."

Her friend's protectiveness made a little ball of something nice expand in Mildred's chest. Even so, Matt didn't need beating up – though she didn't doubt Caroline was capable, given incentive, crush or no crush.

So Mildred shrugged laconically, and insisted, "It wasn't his fault, it was something _I_ did. Don't blame Matt, seriously. Besides, I thought _you_ thought he was cute?"

"No...I'm sure what I said is _I'm not interested_."

"Sure sure, _very_ convincing, Care Bear – you should totally audition for Days of Our Whatsits. Perhaps you–"

A group of teenagers a few row behind Matt's truck suddenly drew her attention.

Even from across the lot Mildred could visibly see something was getting hot-boxed, meaning the group obviously had some seriously sizeable balls between them or they were Darwin Awards stupid; they were right outside the schoo _l_ where any passing teacher could see. Surely the authoritative presence in this town wasn't so poor the stoners weren't worried about getting busted? Honestly, she was starting to come to the conclusion Tanner – despite being a total assdouche, as far as she was concerned (he _tricked_ her!) – was just a normal person forced to drastically overcompensate for every other adult in this town's habit of turning a blind eye to...well _everything_. Well, Jenna didn't ignore stuff – she was pretty on-edge most the time. Maybe she and Tanner should get _married._

Pushing herself up on tippy-toes to see what they were supposed to be looking at, Caroline asked in a befuddled tone, "Isn't that your brother with them? I thought he was still off school?"

"He _is_ ," Mildred confirmed. " _Yet here he is..."_

"He's with the stoner crew. Do you think we should say something?"

"Probably. _Maybe…_ I just...he's grieving – I mean, he'll grow out of it, it's just a phase..."

"Wow, I wouldn't expect you to be so... _chill_ about catching him getting high. Didn't you argue _against_ gateway drugs on the debate team?"

Unconcerned, Mildred reasoned, "It's not like he's doing crystal meth or something. Hey, at least if he's smoking pot I know he'll be eating properly," she joked in a somewhat strained manner. "Better than him forgetting meals when I'm not around to tell him to look after himself."

"I don't get how you can be so blasé – your _brother_ is on _drugs_."

"His life, his decisions."

"Don't you care about him screwing up?"

"Of course I care! But it's not like he's smoked a bit of weed and's immediately going to take up a crack habit! _Fuck_ , Care! I care, I _do_ – I'm just not going to blow this out of proportion. He's sixteen, he's going to do things that might not be sensible, but it's all a learning experience – better he be doing this shit _now_ than when he's in college and should be studying, or when he's trying to hold down a job.

"Thing is, Care, you can't force people to change, they've got to _want_ it. What he wasn't right now is to get over our parents, hang out with people, feel part of something, laugh...but he doesn't really know how to do any of those things anymore, and if this is helping him laugh again, then I'm all for it!

"It won't last forever, like I said – it's a phase. You can't tell me you've _never_ touched the stuff?"

She gave Mildred a scathing frown. "Uh, are you kidding me? Mom's Sheriff, I'd have to be crazy to go anywhere _near_ drugs. She's told me _more_ than enough about how people get hooked on stuff like that."

"You're so repressed."

"I don't get it. You were pretty hardline when we had that debate."

"I'm sure I was, but you've got to remember I was challenged to argue _against_. I'd've been just as good if they'd told me to argue in favor," Mildred pointed out coolly, feeling a bit offended at the suggestion she didn't care about Jeremy at all.

Her voice dropped to low, soothing tones as she told her friend, "Look, it's not like tobacco, extremely addictive because the nicotine. Marijuana's _not_ addictive on its own but it _is_ mildly anti-depressive. It might not be something I'm interested in for _myself_ , but I don't think he's really doing anyone any harm… I'll deal with it if it becomes an issue – till then I'm going to give Jere some room to breathe. Smothering him won't do much good, anyway."

"I suppose..." Caroline allowed, giving her a hug. Clearly, the girl wasn't convinced but would accept Mildred's call. "I'll see you tomorrow, alright? And hey, if Matt's still not talking to you when my new car shows up, I can always give you rides to school instead, yeah?"

Mildred smiled and nodded. "Sure, that'd be good… I guess I should think about getting a ride of my own–" and learning how to drive "–so I can get around. I can't have you guys stuck carting me about all the time."

"It's not really any bother," Caroline assured. "It's nice to have somebody _willing_ to do stuff with me..."

Not always being the most sensitive person in the world, Mildred didn't think she was a good person to broach the subject of Caroline's obvious seclusion from their peer group. She opted for giving the girl a peck on the cheek and a sympathetic 'See you later'.

Then, just as the blond turned to leave, Mildred remembered she had to go give Tanner a piece of her mind.

"Hey – actually, on second thoughts, could you go tell Matt I need a couple of minutes? I've got to go do something."

"What?"

"I forgot to tell Tanner to go fuck himself with his thesis. Won't take long."

Caroline snorted. "Uh, sure...okay." Through narrowed eyes, she suspiciously added, "This better not be your way of making me talk to him 'cause you have some misguided idea we should hook up."

Mildred swore that wasn't her plan at all – nope, not even a little bit – before darting back across the grass and into the school building.

During school hours the building was packed, little troops of students buzzing through it in various directions, lone teachers stalking among them like hunters or hungry queens. Now the tide was drawing out as if gravity had shifted so it wasn't _down_ anymore, the people in the building all ineluctably falling to the exits. Mildred – who'd never been one of the in-crowd in high school – was now the only person doing anything different here; she fastidiously ignored the strong desire to leave the dim, dull building, heading back up the emptying hallways toward Tanner's classroom.

The window on the main stairs had a good view over the parking lot, where she saw Matt was dutifully waiting. She really needed to get her skates on if she didn't want him any more pissed off at her than he already was.

Glowering, Mildred approached Tanner's classroom, flicking through several different possible scenarios for this conversation as she tried to pick the path that would be most beneficial to her. She often played things out ahead of time this way, considering the characters of those around her and how they would respond to her depending on what she did; most the time her musings were on-base, though when they _weren't_ – for whatever reason – they tended to be _massively_ askew, like she was incapable of finding a middleground where she was wrong but close enough to recover control of the situation.

Of all the various ways she considered her confrontation with the horrible history teacher might go, she was _wrong_.

She was so far off-base on this one, she wasn't even in the solar system anymore.

There was only one student on the hall leading to the history classroom. The petite, brown haired girl kept her eyes glued to the ground as swiftly slipped past Mildred towards the stairs. Once she was gone, Mildred's shoes and their tiny heel seemed to echo, causing her to press onto her tiptoes a little to muffle her steps. Vacant buildings had always made her feel awkward – like she was trespassing where she oughtn't be. The way the fluorescent lighting offered only thin, dim illumination to the halls really didn't help.

She slowed as she approached the open door to Tanner's room, taking a deep breath to prepare herself for the coming battle. She could hear him rustling around inside, presumably packing his texts away, and she felt a burst of ravenous hate shoot through her. What a total asswipe – _fuck_ , that boring, bastard _busybody_ , butting his oversized nose in where it didn't belong, trying to have her _read his thesis_ because his ego was so damn big that it was almost a surprise the student population were drawn to the _exits_. Everything and every _one_ within a fifty-mile radius should be _sucked into Tanner's ego_ – fucking sucked in until he was as dense as a neutron star.

Eyes steely, she went to head in…

     Only to halt because there was already a conversation occurring inside.

"...a whole stash of them made up, keeping them in my trunk. What can I say – rookie, but I don't have a nice lockbox in my cupboard, got to settle for a more ghetto set up."

Mildred's ear cocked. The person speaking was a man whose voice she didn't recognize; perhaps it was some teacher for a class she didn't have? She lingered outside the door hesitantly, not entirely willing to take on Tanner while he had backup – it wasn't something she'd planned for.

"You're welcome to any supplies I have. You're in this as much as any of us – you need something, you have it," Tanner said gregariously, sounding friendlier than he ever did when speaking with students.

"Yeah," the unknown man chuckled sardonically, "because I could just come in here, grab _that_ and head off down the halls. Hell, Will, it's a _crossbow_. Give me a skateboard to go with it and the cops around here'll start to expect a whole new kind of drive-by shooting."

Lips half-pursed to withhold a grin at that pronouncement, she started to wonder what was going on. If it were another teacher in there then she hardly thought they would be talking about _crossbows_. Were Tanner and this guy planning on going hunting or something? It was a funny thought – difficult to imagine Tanner in a deerskin, stalking the forests...or doing anything even remotely macho, to be honest. Guy could only qualify as a wet blanket it he quit being so dry and droll.

"I imagine, should the need for this arise whilst on school premises, what people _think_ will be the least of your worries."

Uhhh... _what?_

 _Heh._ Maybe Tanner had finally snapped and planned on having his entire class slaughtered. She couldn't see him hunting but she _could_ see him going all Columbine on the joint.

"Yeah yeah, stake first answer questions later. Not something I'll be forgetting again anytime soon."

_Holy friggin' shit!_

Was that steak or _stake_? If it was _stake_ then whoever was in the classroom must _know_ about the vampires! And he was speaking with Tanner about it, which meant the _history teacher_ knew too… Either that or they were lovers doing a really weird role play and it was all a massive coincidence… _Yeah right._

" _Good_. There aren't enough like you," Tanner was saying, admiration coloring his tone. "The last thing we need is for you to go and get yourself killed or, worse, _compromised_."

Mildred didn't believe in coincidence.

"You're sure they're in town?"

"There's been an increasing frequency of 'animal attacks' in the surrounding area. None in town – plotting them all out it's easy to see Mystic Falls is at the epicenter of the recent activity. They are definitely here."

That would be Damon. She hadn't heard about the killings but she'd already known he was about. Big deal was – _these guys_ knew it too. Were they... _hunting_ for the vampire responsible? Because...well, Mildred wanted Damon to stay out her head but...she didn't want him  _dead_.

"What about you – have you managed to find out anything else?" the stranger asked Tanner. "You've been here for years and you've made no progress?"

The man's words weren't said harshly but there was a mocking underlay that made Mildred vindictively pleased. Anyone willing to put it to Tanner was okay in her books.

"Nobody believes..." the history teacher defended waspishly. "Digging up information for my thesis was hard enough, and that was _without_ the extra resources available to some of those in town. I've been putting students from old Mystic Falls families onto the trail, planting the seeds of curiosity, but none of them have managed to tell me anything significant so far. The Fell girl was all but useless – complete airhead, can hardly walk and talk at the same time."

And that clinched it. Mildred was eavesdropping, it was official. There was something funny going on here and she wanted – _needed_ – to know what. Were these two on the vampire hating Council? Who was Tanner speaking with?

"And you think this Gilbert girl's going to be any better? The one who was in a _coma_ last month, who backchats and falls asleep in class?"

Hey! This guy made it sound like she was– she was some...some, well, _useless miscreant_!

But wait – why was _she_ mentioned at all?

"I do. Don't let her recent failures fool you. Gilbert may not be a genius by any stretch of the imagination but she _is_ from a Founding Family and her research skills are impeccable. If there's something to be found in her family's history then she _will_ find it. She's a bloodhound, a curious one – once that girl's got an idea, she'll follow it to the ends of the earth."

"Really? I found her to be quite...vacuous. Always staring into space, daydreaming, doesn't take notes."

"Recent events have made her act out some. We can only hope the time away from class will aid her in this."

"I'll have to take your word for it. When's her report due?"

The report… The one using Tanner's book and… Oh… _Oh_ – using ' any further resources' available to her through her family. So, what, he was _using_ her – fishing for information that only the member of a Founding Family might be able to get at? Information about the town's history with vampires?

"Next semester – a vacation piece I told her would prevent her having to repeat junior year."

"You have that power?" the unknown man asked amusedly – it wasn't obvious whether he was doubting Tanner or if he thought _her_ abilities so poor that _nothing_ could possibly stop her being held back a year. "Have you _seen_ her GPA? I know you say it's because the parents kicked the bucket, but look at her scores in the couple of months _before_ that – I say there was something else going on there already."

Hah! Mildred _knew_ she couldn't be so bad she had managed to turn awesome grades into failing a year within a _month_. She was _good_ , but not _that_ good. She didn't like the way the man was talking about her, though, and...how did he even _know_ her scores? He _had_ to be one of the teachers.

"I've got enough pull to see to it, yes," Tanner said assuringly. He sounded smug as he elaborated, "Between me, Cal and Charles, there will be plenty of reports written on her to ensure they let her fly through. She's had a bad semester – some make-up tests wouldn't go amiss but there's no point in her repeating junior year."

"Sounds like you just don't want to have to teach her any longer than you _have_ to."

"Her sister… Well, a favorite of mine – bright mind, that one."

"Sister?" the man asked mystified. "I don't recall another Gilbert on the roster – the brother had a pass."

"Keira Gilbert is, most regretfully, no longer with us. Without her, I fear Gloria's life is awfully bleak for at least the foreseeable future. They were exceptionally close."

"Wow, poor kid. Parents _and_ sister. Family must be cursed."

"This certainly isn't the first time Gilberts have begun showing up dead. The members of Founding Families have all been subject to mysterious and gruesome deaths ever since the mid-eighteen hundreds. If the pattern continues – has already _begun_ – the town elite will find themselves a dwindling few in months and years to come."

"You think _they_ might be gunning for the Gilberts?"

"Grayson Gilbert did not strike me as the type to simply drive their car into the creek. The fact is, the only way they could have broken through the guardrail in such a manner is if they were traveling at a speed significantly over the limit. At least by _natural_ means."

"So, he was speeding and it was raining – it happens."

"Perhaps. Or it was _made_ happen."

"And the Gilbert girl looks like CB. There's got to be a reason for that…" The stranger sighed tiredly; Mildred thought it sounded like he was running a hand across his face. "So, we watch her," he finally decided. "She shows up with her throat ripped out, we'll know we're on the right track. That the gist of it? Watch and wait..."

     Nice... _Callous._

She continued to listen but nothing else pertinent was said. The pair now spoke about the weather – what a pair of old ladies – and some dinner party someone named 'Cal' would host in a few days time.

Mildred contemplated still going in to tell Tanner she wasn't going to do the essay… But, given what those two were just talking about, that might make them cotton on to the fact she'd been spying on them. She'd already wanted to have it out with the history professor even without overhearing this conversation; now, though, it was clear that _her_ _report_ was important to these men. They may be suspicious if she just barged in there and told them she wouldn't do it.

A shadow poured through the classroom door, cutting right to the toe of the ground at her feet.

 _Shit_.

Quickly – quiet as any cat but hardly as graceful – Mildred crouched down and scuttled back from the door, parking herself in the little nook the supply cabinets made with the boys' upstairs washroom. Keeping her breathing silent and steady, she balanced on her haunches and peered around the corner of the cabinet.

Mr. Tanner was leaving the classroom carrying a large gym bag; its load was clearly substantial, the straps were straining in his hand. Already in the hallway was another man, himself unburdened, lithe form clad in a tan jacket and jeans. Mildred could only see him side on. The man's hair had the color of dishwater under the hall lights, though she suspected it would be the shade of wet sand in more favorable conditions. He had a short, sharp nose and two-day stubble.

Squinting, she came to the conclusion that this was the man who'd been subbing govec a couple of weeks back. The usual teacher for that class was back now, so what was this guy doing hanging out here? Richard C. Lee wasn't exactly a grown man's paradise. The sub and Tanner seemed to be tight, sure, but why not meet up elsewhere?

The history teacher handed off the gym bag. Sub took it, murmured something too low for her to hear, then left.

Mildred waited for several minutes– until she was certain Tanner's associate wasn't coming back – to slide out her hiding place. As carefully as she could, she trotted back to the stairs, took them two at a time, then pushed open the double doors at the front of the school.

Bright, blinding sunlight hit her. In the distance, she could make out the sub pushing the gym bag into the back seat of his Pontiac. She supposed he didn't have room in the trunk...because allegedly it was full of stakes. Mind you, stakes couldn't take up _that_ much space, so there must be other stuff too. Other weapons, probably… This was so _Supernatural_ – the small-town substitute teacher keeping an arsenal in his trunk, trying to get information on vampires out the locals…

Feeling less like going home and more like stopping to bang her head against the wall of the building, she headed out across the grass. Matt had waited for her, bless him.

God, this was so stupid. She'd spent all day wondering what to do about Unreality, her Lucinality, the looming threat of Damon – who apparently wasn't only _her_ problem, now – and even Jeremy's new group of stoner friends… Now she had new questions – like who _was_ that substitute teacher, and exactly what were he and Tanner up to? She didn't know – she was just sure it couldn't be good.

Urgh, this was _her_ world, damn it!

Whatever trouble those two were brewing up, it seemed they'd already linked her with it in their minds. Mildred wasn't sure how much they knew but she was determined to find out.


	12. Woe Is Me Wednesdays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GENERAL: Sometimes dreams and reality conflict and collide until they become indecipherable from one another. On the b-side, a thousand differences in history have forged an almost unrecognizable world. At least three times a week, Mildred wishes she could return to her own world — to a place where there are no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there are fifty states. Unfortunately, it seems that the powers that govern the universe have very different plans for her life — she's replaced the lead-heroine in a trashy TV show and, as it turns out, only a true Sue can save the world.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER: She often thinks about how clever she is and, conversely, how much of a fucking moron she can be. Sometimes, when you stumble you don't pick yourself up – those around you have to do it instead. And sometimes, in the end, it's easier to just go with it for five minutes.

 

 

 

 

 _june_  
woe is me wednesdays

 

 

 **Stepping onto the concrete in a bit of a daze,** Mildred dragged her feet across Richard C. Lee's near-empty lot on autopilot. She greeted Matt as well she could – her preoccupation causing her to stumble through an apology for making him wait so long – and was in his passenger seat a few moments later. He grunted in response to her apology, probably more annoyed than he sounded but having noticed just how awful his ex-girlfriend – ex- _friend_ , perhaps, the way things had been lately – was looking.

On the drive home, she thought over the catastrophe she'd caused with him.

In the past week, it had really started to sink in that what she'd foolishly done was selfish and immature, the actions of someone who was actually a teenager rather than just pretending to be one. Mildred had gotten so wrapped up in herself – in the Gilberts and Damon, in the sudden discovery of an additional, deceased sibling – that she hadn't even remembered Matt existed when she went toe to toe with Zach Salvatore.

She'd run her mouth off like a bratty teen, forsaking caution in favor of power. It had made her feel _good_ that Zach knew exactly what she was talking about; it had felt _amazing_  when it became clear she knew more than he did at this point.

Then Matt spoke up, burst the bubble and… Well, Zach's anger hadn't exactly been misplaced.

Why did Mildred just brush off her friend's reaction to the v-bomb? Because Matt wasn't a real person, he didn't have real feelings and reactions? Did she think he'd just bounce back from the massive revelation she carelessly unloaded on him?

Wow – she was such a bitch. A narcissistic, dumb bitch with a massive god complex.

Of course she was...just look at where she was living! She'd literally created a _whole reality_ with herself at the center.

Psychologically, it was clear she had major issues.

She treated this world like a playground... Yeah, she went to school, pretending to herself she did the best she could to behave as Gloria Gilbert aught; that was a game in itself, a way to pass the time. Fact was, deep down she acted like this place was her sandbox, full of opportunity and intrigue, a puzzle to unravel, a quest to overcome. _She_ had to find out what Tanner was up to, _she_ knew the future, _she_ had to protect the Gilberts from the supernatural, _she_ had to make sure no one found out she wasn't Gloria. It was all _her her her_.

Mildred always knew she had a bit of an ego. It wasn't hard to accept, seeing as she spent half of her school career shrouded in Lucy; the other woman was one of the biggest and best crazies she'd ever met, her presence always encouraging those around her to just let go and be themselves. Lucy had an enormous ego and she knew it. Why shouldn't Mildred let her's free too? Nothing wrong with that, for an actress.

Until now…

She'd gotten too big, too _reckless..._  Poor Matt was shouldering the fallout. She said Tanner would suck down everything in town with his massive head, but...truth be, _she_ wasn't much better.

Brick wall...roadblock...the dashboard… Didn't matter what, she just needed to repeatedly bang her head into something, set herself straight through the application of what Lucy liked to insist was 'percussive maintenance'. Hell, perhaps if Mildred did it hard enough then she'd wake up in real-life...

"I'm sorry," she breathed impulsively.

The words escaped before her mind could catch them. She felt the apology hang in the air between them, thinking better of saying anything in followup. Matt didn't respond, giving all his attention to the tight turning off of Maple Street and onto the Gilberts' drive. He pulled the handbrake but didn't kill the engine.

Not even turning to her, Matt ground out, "Not really sure what your saying sorry for, but–"

"For the Boarding House, for being weird lately, everything," she declared, a note of desperation to it.

Soon, she was going to completely crack. Mildred felt it coming, like when static electricity tensed the air in the leadup to a big thunderstorm.

"– _but_ ," Matt continued, ignoring what she'd said, "fine. I accept your apology. But...it doesn't mean I'm ready to talk to you yet. Just – _go_ … Go home, Gloria."

There was no point arguing.

Clearly, Matt needed more time to digest things. Unlike her, he'd gotten no warning the supernatural world existed. He was still in the denial stage. She _did_ dump it on him like he'd agreed to a surprise ice-bucket challenge. He required longer to adjust than she had... More time than she'd needed, truth be told, to accept she lived here now. Somewhere down the line, he'd probably want proof it was all true – God knows how that was going to work.

As she stepped through the front door of the Gilbert house, she decided things would get better with time. They _had_ to.

Upon first glance, nobody was home. Further inspection showed Magda was crashed out on a beanbag in the playroom, a film that looked to be _the Rescuers_ playing on the small tv in there. Jenna was in there too, curled up on the couch in the corner with her laptop balanced on the chair's arm. She didn't look up as Mildred passed and went into the lounge – the woman must be doing something important… Studying, probably – Jenna had some presentation at her college in a few days.

Jeremy was absent. She figured he was still with the stoners, buying out the entire stock of Cheetos at the local minimart. She tried very hard to worry about that but really couldn't find it in her. Mildred had been young once too.

Dropping her bag in the entrance to the living room, she slumped onto the nearest sofa and grabbed the remote for the TV. She didn't want to _think_ right now.

The television set brightened.

_"...ame the only country whose landmass spans three continents."_

_"Russia."_

On the screen, a too-orange man was directing a confident looking contestant on some quiz. Predictably, the last station it was tuned to had been devoted to gameshows.

_"Correct... In a standard year, how many days are there in the month of August?"_

_"Thirt–"_

Snorting at the simplicity of the questions, Mildred flicked over. She might not want to think but she didn't want to die from boredom, either.

_"I don't see the issue, Sean. We've got the Colt, we still got three bullets left–"_

Too weird.

_"...ick a pair of toppings, then pick a pair of crusts!"_

_"It's the pick-your-pair deal at the Pizz–"_

Commercial break – no good.

 _"Would you look at them go! Kaz and Dave are lightening – over the hurdles,_  
  _through the mud, tackling the Crumbling Bridge of Kazakh Doom… It looks_  
_like they've got– Oh no! Spoke too soon! Kaz is going to have to go back to_  
_the sta–"_

No escaping obstacle course reality-TV, even in Unreality.

 _"The most important thing to remember about these small marsupials, is that_  
      _they require an awful lot of attention. Due to late human colonisation of this_  
_habitat, local wildlife has little fear of humans – they have come to see us not_  
_as a threat, but a resource to be exploi–"_

Mildred turned over again, trying to ignore the way something swirled uncomfortably in her abdomen at the subject matter of the wildlife documentary. It made her think about her father – she didn't want to dwell on people she'd lost right now.

 _"...shape shared by both pre-World War globes and a traditional soccer ball?_  
_Is it A – icosidodecahedron, B – rhombicuboctahedron,_  
_C – deltoidalcositetrahedron, or D – rombictriacontahedron..."_

_"Kevin, I just don't kno–"_

Too hard to even consider trying that right now.

_"Streaker… Didn't need to see that..."_

_"Nop–"_

More advertisements.

_"Hopeful treasure hunters have searched for years, to no avail. The modern  
      Holy Grail of lost treasure, the Amber Room has never been recovered."_

Documentary. Too slow.

_"Sometimes fantasy's better than reality–"_

Screw you...

_"...nd as such, the Brittainian President has stated he will not be responding  
      to such threats._

_"As Albanian President, Julius Saakazde, lines up further meetings with the_  
_Britons to discuss what has become a harrowing trend of increased violence,_  
_topping even that seen in the nineteen-seventies and mid-nineties, the world_  
_watches wi–"_

News. Depressing _depressing_ news about a world she didn't even know... There wasn't any point watching it, so she flipped past.

_"If every vamp who said 'e was at the Crucifixion was actually there, would've  
      been like bloody Woodstoc–"_

Urgh, definitely not.

_"What about sex?"_

_"Well...it could get complicated. I mean – we work together, I'm older, certainly  
      ...but maybe you like that."_

_"I meant maybe he has neurosyphilis."_

_"Oooh, nice cover."_

An old episode of _House_ … Yeah, that could work.

While she rifled the cupboards for whichever snack foods required the least preparation and were most drenched with saturated fat, Jeremy half-stumbled through the front door, looking worn out but lighter in the shoulders than usual. He reclined across his favored couch, limbs dangling loosely. She re-entered the room carrying two bowls of chips, one of which she thrust in his direction.

"Good time?" Mildred asked, careful to keep any element of judgment out her tone.

Jeremy shrugged and stuffed a couple of chips in his mouth. He stared vacantly at the TV, mind somewhere else. His sclera was pink, like he was recovering from a nasty case of conjunctivitis, and she could smell the weed on his clothes even across the room. Considering these things, it seemed his new stoner friends had been the ones to drop him home. He'd not had time to air out yet.

Though she had no intention of interrogating him about his activities, Jeremy closed quickly closed off all paths that might've lead to her doing so. Perhaps it was because he didn't want to deal with a lecture. Or maybe the timing of his need to sit down and have a 'chat' with her was complete coincidence; maybe he hadn't even considered she might try to mother him. There was a good chance he was just genuinely concerned about her.

"I know it's– I know you think about her a lot this time of year," Jeremy said all of a sudden, choosing to stare down at his hands rather try following the on-screen drama. "I do, too – we _all_ do. This year's worse than ever…"

Slightly bemused – it had been a long day, between Tanner and co., Lucy and all the other shit – she cocked her head to the side. This sounded important. It would be best she didn't say something irreverent and completely blow whatever cover she had.

God – _shut up ego!_

As if anyone here was going to suddenly guess she was a _body-snatcher_... Why would they even _consider_ that? The very idea was laughable.

"Look," he backtracked awkwardly, "I've been meaning to speak to you for a couple of weeks. Mom and Dad's brought it all back so bad – and..." he sighed, sounding far older than fifteen. "Direct – right. Direct route... I saw the articles you were reading."

Okay… Now she was just confused.

Frowning, Mildred asked, "Uh, which ones?"

Articles?

"When you borrowed my laptop, yeah?"

She nodded, with him so far.

"When you gave it back, you didn't clear the history or anything. Didn't even close tabs. You had all those articles about Keira open. I mean, I guess you weren't reading them for _fun_. I didn't– _don't_ – I mean, I've been trying not to think about it… Mom and Dad wouldn't– can't..." he let his failed sentences trail off.

Right…

So, the gist of it seemed to be, when Mildred borrowed Jeremy's laptop she Googoled for stuff on Gloria Gilbert, trying to find as much out about the girl as possible. She'd been looking for her predecessor's Facebook and stuff; what she'd gotten instead was some newspaper articles she meant to go over… That never happened, though. She spent ages on the geography of North America; by the time she was through with that, she was too tired for anything else. Jeremy took the laptop back the next morning and the opportunity had passed.

Jeremy was staring at her now, eyes hard and... _haunted_. Far too haunted for a boy his age.

"We… we _all_ miss her," he said roughly. "I know it's different for you, maybe worst for you because she was your twin. I just… _Jesus_ , Mom and Dad would be so much better for this! I just… I'm here if– if you really _have_ to talk about it, right?"

Mildred tried not to think about Keira Gilbert's sparkly white headstone in Fell's Church Cemetery. When she did all she got was the smell of dirt and rain and freezing legs and fucking sick to her stomach... The girl _wasn't_ her twin – Mildred never even met her. But something about the girl being gone chewed her insides up in a way she couldn't even begin to explain. Like...a piece of her was missing – a piece she never knew she needed.

Her brother's expression was forlorn, pleading. His hands gripped the edge of his bowl of chips so hard it looked like it was going to shatter. The bowl didn't break but his voice did. "That's what you need, yeah? You– you need me to _listen_ , to… to _help_ you."

She turned away insensitively, not liking the direction the conversation was taking. She couldn't think about the other Gilbert girl's death.

On-screen, knock-off Cuddy was asking: _"How's your hooker?"_

"Sweet of you to ask," Mildred instantly responded, taking herself out of the current situation, slipping into her comfort zone instead. "Funny story. She was going to be a hospital administrator, but she just hated having to screw people like that."

"Glore, come on, _don't do that_ ," Jeremy begged, trying to regain her attention. Then he stopped, frowned, and she watched the cogs in his mind backing up. "Wait, isn't this that new medical thing? It's today's episode – a _new_ episode, not a rerun, right?"

Mildred shrugged, neither confirming nor denying this. She'd read the scripts and the funnier lines were very memorable. So was that damn headstone: _'Keira Anne Gilbert 1988 – 2004'._

Fuck.

She needed to stop thinking about it. She needed to fucking _lobotomize_ herself – that might help.

"Whatever..." her brother said, shaking it off. "It's just – pouring over those articles, it isn't what she would've wanted. You _know_ that. And I know it's like – fuck, _we've lost everyone_. But...there's still _me_ – there's me and you, and Mags and Jenna. Hell, there's _Uncle John_ when he's not busy being the world's biggest asshat."

That thunderstorm was going to hit soon – except it might be a hurricane… Inside, she couldn't stop shouting, _Stop talking! Just stop! Can't you see I don't want to think about it?_

She found herself figuratively boarding up windows in preparation for what was to come. On the outside, Mildred's facade was woodenly calm. "Look, it's sweet you're worried about me, but...I'm fine, okay?"

"Then why're you reading old news stories about Keira, if you're _fine_?"

Except she hadn't read them – she'd been too _busy_ to read them, too busy to find out she had a twin sister who'd died. And _now_ … Well, now she didn't _want_ to read them because...what if the girl got ripped to shreds by a fucking vampire? She didn't think she was ready to know about _that_ happening… She wasn't sure she'd _ever_ be ready to know that.

She didn't even know why it mattered so much... Not her twin. Not her _life_.

"You've been… _good_. You've made Mom and Dad not seem so… It still hurts but having you about's helped. And you were when _she_ died, too – I sucked and you looked after me. I want to help _you_ – I _need_ to do this."

"If you want to help, just _drop_ it. _Drop it_ ," she insisted unyeildingly, unreasonably angry with the boy but unable to do anything about it. Having had enough of feeling like this – of feeling at all, why couldn't it just all go away? – she redirected Jeremy's attention. "You should take a shower – you stink of pot. Jenna'll notice. And eyedrops wouldn't go amiss."

"Fine," Jeremy seethed, stomping out the room.

She couldn't help but feel she'd just failed him in a big way.

With a strong urge to lob her half-empty bowl at the wall, she screwed her eyes tight shut. What _was_ it with her and pissing everyone off lately? It was like she was a hormonal teenage girl and couldn't help herself…

She sighed heavily. The whole house seemed to exhale alongside her.

She was probably due a period. Maybe Gloria Gilbert just got uberPMS or something? Yeah...that had to be it. This foul, uncontrollable mood would pass soon enough.

 

 

 

 **Mildred had an opinion for every day of the week.** Everything bad to have ever happened must've gone down on a Wednesday, for example. Monday was cool enough, despite many people's complaints about it being the first day of the working week. Saturday was fast, good things happened on Thursdays, nothing at all happened on Sundays, and Friday was reserved for humorous fuck-ups.

Despite this, she had no particular feeling for Tuesdays. It was a nothing-day where anything might happen; perhaps Tuesdays passed bright and swift like Saturdays...and in addition was very rarely required to carry the weight of such horrific occurrences as 9/11. Mildred slept through that, though. In fact, she had occasionally – _drunkenly_ – speculated she'd never actually been to a Tuesday at all and that they were all a myth. More likely, whenever one had actually happened (realistically about once a week), she'd blinked and missed it...or just spent the whole day assuming it was Monday again (or Wednesday, if things seemed particularly shit).

As today passed, though, she was acutely aware it was definitely a Tuesday.

It was the twentieth of the month, one day prior to high school letting out for the summer and two days before her birthday. As such, she was in a pretty good mood compared to the day before.

Yes, she was still stuck here. Yes, she'd kind of forgotten how old Gloria was turning this year and Matt's cold shoulder had barely been downgraded to a still-frosty glare following her apology. On the flipside, though, soon she wouldn't have to deal with the tedium of govec or French...and she was pretty much guaranteed chocolate cake. If she were lucky she might even get some presents. (Unfortunately, any gifts were likely to be geared toward whatever the depressingly dull Gloria might've liked, so she wasn't about to prematurely get excited about them. She'd had enough of her predecessor's expensive jotters and not-quite-right novels to last a lifetime.)

Annoyingly, gym was one of her Tuesday classes. The only boon there, was that Mr. Nixon – the instructor – really didn't seem in the mood to do anything constructive. Basically, he told them since they were already in their gym kits they may as well go play stuck-in-the-mud or kiss-chase or 'whatever it is bored teenagers play these days'.

Mildred strongly suspected the man wouldn't be returning in the new semester; there was a lingering odor of beer surrounding him and his gaze was misty, unfocused most the time. Still, at least he wasn't making them play dodgeball anymore. Despite the improved reflexes this body featured, she didn't enjoy having a teacher take his frustrations out on them by way of lobbing hard, rubber balls at their faces.

Soon the school day had ended. There would be no more lessons until the start of senior year. Richard C. Lee only unlocked its doors on the 21st to hold it's bi-annual Open Day.

So, the morning before her birthday, Mildred awoke to a flurry of text messages. More came through even as she slugged through the first of them.

 ** _From_ Matt:** _Bonnie got back._ _U gonna  
                            c her l8r?  
_**_From_ Matt:** _Dnt wry. Just realized wt_  
                            day it is

 ** _From_ Care:** _Last day! You coming in?_  
                            I know you didn't want to  
                            last year, but I kinda  
                            hoped you'd help me with  
                            yearbook related  
                            disasters.

 ** _From_ Matt:** _This dsnt mean im tlkin 2  
                            u again_

 ** _From_ Care:** _Come on bestie, I NEED  
                            you!  
_**_From_ Care:** _Even your weird friend_  
                            Bonny's here. Why  
                            bother coming back just  
                            for a day? She's been  
                            gone a MONTH. Think  
                            she failed the whole  
                            semester 'cause of it?

 ** _From_ Unknown:** _Matt gave me ur #.  
                           Says u lost ur old phone.  
                           Jst got in last nite. Wht  
                           happnd with u n Merry?  
                           Shes WAY pssd off w/u  
_**_From_ Unknown:** _W8, dsnt mttr rite_  
                           now. How r u hlding up?  
                           Wanna skip OD w/me?  
                           Nt much point me bin  
                           here 4 a day neways!

 ** _From_ Care:** _So will you?_

 ** _To_ Unknown:** _I'm fine. Nt ditching._  
                    Things 2 do at school.  
                    Tlk later?

 ** _To_ Care:** _I'm coming. Wouldn't leave  
                    u in ur hour of need. X_

 ** _To_ Matt:** _Thnks 4 telling me. U dnt_  
                    hav to tlk 2 me but r u still  
                    giving me a ride?

 ** _From_ Bonnie:** _Ur going in? But u_  
                            NEVER go on last day.   
                            U sure ur feelin ok

 ** _From_ Matt:** _Jst pulled in at school._  
                           Sry didnt thnk ud b   
                           cming 2day cuz of what   
                           it is

 ** _To_ Care:** _Can u pick me up?_  
                    Matt's already there. ):  
                    He 4got bout me.

 ** _From_ Care:** _OMG that's totally not_  
                            cool, even if you ARE   
                            fighting. Will be there in   
                            15. Dress sxycute for   
                            photos.

 ** _To_ Bonnie:** _I feel fine, rly. Just need  
                    2 get 2 school._

 ** _From_ Bonnie:** _Wnt me 2 drive u_

 ** _To_ Bonnie:** _No, already have a ride.  
                    Thnx tho._

 ** _From_ Bonnie:** _Matt cming 2 get u?_  
                             He sez u guys brk up   
                             tho

 ** _To_ Bonnie:** _Care tking me._

 ** _From_ Bonnie:** _What?_

 ** _To_ Bonnie:** _Caroline. She's giving_  
                         me a ride 2day. I'm good.  
                         B there soon.

 ** _From_ Bonnie:** …  
**_From_ Bonnie:** _Dnt understand._  
                             Were NOT fs w/her. Y   
                             wud she hlp u

 ** _To_ Bonnie:** _She's my friend_

The girl obviously didn't have an adequate response for that. No more messages came in.

It was great news Bonnie was back. Mildred had been waiting to meet the witch since her first few days here. From what she'd heard, the girl had been away in the north for the past month.

It was late – Mildred needed to get sorted fast.

Though not having paid to much mind to how she dressed while in this world, she respected Caroline enough to do as the girl requested. Photos were going to be taken; Mildred didn't want to be caught looking like a hobo under the blond's camera. As head of the journalism club and setter of the yearbooks, upsetting Caroline could easily result in lifelong embarrassment… Not that she planned on being here for _years_ or anything.

Usually, if she were having headshots done, she would book a session with a makeup artist and find the most flattering clothes she could. To be honest, she wasn't all that good at applying cosmetics, even though her sight was fine and her hand steady. Usually, there was someone – be it makeup artist or multitasking, majorly underpaid stage hand – around to do it for her.

Fortunately, Gloria Gilbert had very fair skin with no break-outs. Also having brows easy enough to shape, she really only used mascara – because her eyelashes were near-invisible they were so pale – and lipgloss day to day. It made getting ready a lot easier than it had been in her real body. In reality, she'd always had to schedule an hour to fight flyaway, briary hair into some semblance of a style. Such allocations of time were unnecessary, these days.

Good thing, too. By the clock's account, she only had ten minutes left – not even time for a shower.

Since she went shopping, Gloria's closet was chock-full of the sorts of things Mildred was most comfortable in. The jeans were all flattened to the back end of a rail, a selection of dresses in various styles replacing them. She grabbed herself a pretty blue one made out of a floaty material she loved the feel of, hoping it qualified as 'sxycute'. There was no way she wanted Caroline going into her closet – the girl might get an urge to organize it. It was a bit...not _untidy_ , per se, but the sort of haphazard Mildred's father liked to refer to as 'organized chaos'.

No hose, nude color shoes decorated with lace, and a small, white purse seeing as she didn't need any textbooks today. (Classes were over for three whole months!) She fished a peach headbandish thing out the dresser drawer and threw it on, twisting half her hair back into it.

The result was...okay. She didn't know what her predecessor would've classified as looking good but, in Mildred's opinion, she looked fine for photos.

Downstairs, the doorbell trilled loudly, echoing up through the house. Caroline was always punctual.

"Hey!" her friend greeted when the door was opened. "You know, it's been _so long_ since I've been here – not since you remodeled."

A fond smile crossed Mildred's face. "Nice to see you, too."

"Oh, right – yeah, _obviously_. Sorry, it's just so much _brighter_ in here now," Caroline announced, looking all the way through to the kitchen. "And that huge sideboard looks a lot better now there's actually room for it. You know, I've never gotten why you live here and not at the big old Gilbert place. It's like a frickin' _palace_."

Mildred shrugged, not ever having seen or heard much about the other Mystic Falls house the Gilberts' apparently owned.

"I'm just going to grab some OJ, give us a sec," Mildred said, heading back into the house. Over her shoulder, she called, "Come in, if you want. You can inspect our living room!"

Her friend laughed. "It's very nice. None of that seventies flowery stuff you used to have – got to be a relief, not waking up wondering whether you got sent back in time during the night."

Returning with two little bottles of juice from the refrigerator and a banana, Mildred cocked an eyebrow. "Come on – it can't've been _that_ bad."

"Are you kidding me? Anyone who came in here left with their pants brown...with orange and lime vomit. It was atrocious."

"Meh – I must have a short memory," Mildred declared, shooing the other blond out the house and locking up behind her.

"Or you've blocked it out as a traumatic experience." Caroline grimaced. "I know _I_ would've done."

"Yeah, but you're the style cops. Maybe you should become a vigilante, protecting innocent but clueless citizens from terrible fashion choices!"

The girl giggled, looking Mildred up and down. "I don't think you need saving. You know, your sense of style's gotten a lot better since the...you know."

"I'm not so sure..." Mildred started to say slowly. "I reckon–" then stopped as she saw a police car pulled up to the curb, engine still running.

She looked over at Caroline questioningly.

"Oh yeah," the girl said with some embarrassment, "my car's still not shown up – the only thing a guilty daddy's worth, by the way! ...So Mom's driving us. I mean, she's got to be at Open Day anyway, so it's not like it's out her way or anything, otherwise she probably wouldn't bother."

Knowing all about mentally-absent mothers, Mildred offered Caroline a commiserative, understanding look as they both slid into the back seat of the cruiser.

"Thanks for coming to pick me up, Ma'am," Mildred said as the car pulled off down Birch Avenue. "Jenna's got some thing out at Whitmore, so I was in a real bind."

"Not a problem," the Sheriff replied, her warm, smiling face reflected in the rearview mirror. "I was going to the high school anyway. These events are always more hassle than they're worth."

"Still, you live on the other side of town. You didn't have to come so far out your way."

"Nonsense – it's only a ride. And I know your– _knew_ your parents well. We're practically family," the woman decreed, leaving no room for nonsense or takebacks.

On the other side of the car, Caroline fidgeted with her purse, looking like she wanted to be anywhere else.

"So, Gloria, how's it been for you at school?" her friend's mom probed. "I've heard a few bad things – Council meetings seem to be more gossip bees than anything. The teacher's up there are mostly jobsworths… Don't give credit where it's due. I was surprised to hear from Carrie you'd gone back at all – your brother took the free pass, _you_ didn't."

"Uh, yeah..." Mildred answered dubiously, glancing at Caroline for help. "It's been tough. My scores have been... _not good_."

"Scores don't mean as much as people like to tell you. I flunked out my last year, you know. My mom – Carrie's grandma – passed. It was cancer. I fell to pieces, failed pretty much everything except sports – never went back and made it up. Didn't do me any harm in the long run, right?"

"Mom, please just stop," Caroline begged. "I'm sure Glore doesn't want to hear about how you 'fought' for your position. I know you need new recruits, but please don't do it with my _friends_."

"Hey, not guilty. Not what I was doing," the Sheriff assured her daughter. "I'm just saying, Gloria, don't let a few poor scores affect what you think of yourself. Not all professions require high marks and college degrees. A piece of paper won't make you smart. If you're anything like your mother, you're talented enough to get by without all that."

Mildred's eyebrows had risen higher and higher while Sheriff Forbes spoke, surprised the woman apparently didn't put much stock in the education system. It was funny, really, because Caroline really _did_ care about it, taking as many courses as she feasibly could and getting straight As in everything. It was weird that the girl and her mother were so different from one another.

"Yeah, plus, as a Founding Family member you can have any job in town you want whether you're qualified or not," Caroline pointed out.

This comment seemed to annoy her mother, smothering any further attempts at conversation like a wet towel on a chip pan fire – probably just what the blond wanted. When they all got out the car at Richard C. Lee, Caroline wasted no time in dragging Mildred inside the building without so much as a 'bye' to her mother.

That was one mother-daughter relationship in need of some serious work.

Even though she often thought the school was like an ant colony, workers and soldiers dizzyingly orbiting its royal family, today things were even worse. There were streamers everywhere; tables with displays from all subjects, year groups and clubs lined the downstairs halls; and students accompanied by family members overflowed out onto the front lawn.

Caroline immediately dived into the chaos, well in her element. Within five minutes she'd directed the listless football team to go set up some gazebos on the grass outside, had the dance committee set to work blowing up an enormous crate of yellow and maroon balloons, and reminded the – ever forgetful – home economics teacher she'd agreed to open up the cafeteria for visitors. It was almost cathartic to watch the girl work.

Mildred leaned back against a wall, content to do nothing but observe. Unfortunately, her friend had tasks for _her_ , as well.

"I just need you to make sure there's a stack of yearbooks in every homeroom. Last year we were short and a couple of the seniors had trouble finding one. There's plenty made up – it's all a matter of distribution."

"Okay, Care. Don't worry so much, I'll make sure everything's set," Mildred promised, wanting to lessen the girl's workload.

Caroline was the most organized person she'd ever met. She was also the most frazzled and generally neurotic. She needed to take a break sometimes.

The yearbooks were a lot plainer than Mildred would've expected for something of her friend's design. Caroline was very much the girly girl, such showing in the style of her clothing and her bedroom decorations, though it certainly wasn't over the top. She didn't seem to like pink much, favoring yellow – somehow she managed to look good in it. The cover she'd had designed for the yearbooks showed – only slightly worryingly, considering the school's crest (or perhaps the _crest_ was worrying?) – a large, gray wolf with burning amber eyes. It was a simple flow of lines against a midnight blue background. At the bottom, white text declared the book to be _'Richard C. Lee High School, 2005-06'_... It was tasteful.

Mildred bustled from classroom to classroom, deftly avoiding the seemingly endless stream of students – and their relatives, in far too many cases – who wanted her attention.

The problem with coming from a Founding Family, was that everyone seemed to know who you were. It didn't help that, unlike during Mildred's real-world high school career, Gloria was a very popular girl. She was on several committees and – at least until Mildred stole her life and quit pretty much everything – participated in so many clubs it was a wonder she could even keep track. The only two things still on 'Gloria's extracurricular list were currently cheerleading – which Caroline had gracefully allowed her to bow out of until the new season – and lacrosse. She had lined some dance sessions up for the summer, hoping to get more used to the abilities of her new, lither form, but that was just about it.

Parents of peers she didn't even know kept trying to stop her in the corridors, wishing her well and offering their condolences on the sudden passing of her parents. Some expressed concern that they hadn't seen her at the church service, worried she was taking everything very hard, even though Mildred was sure Uncle John would've explained to them she was in a coma at the time. It was hard to attend a funeral when you were unconscious – it didn't mean there was something wrong with you or you required busybody _suicide watch_.

Besides, where had all these 'friends' of her parents been the past few weeks? It was like they were all coming out the woodwork now for the pure pleasure of getting under her feet. They were like cats – attention seeking and only present when _they_ wanted something.

After spending near ten minutes extracting herself from the disgustingly sleazy presence of Mayor Lockwood – who she couldn't offend too badly, lest his wife kick up a fuss and stop Mildred from attending those aforementioned dance classes – she managed to get all bar one stack of the yearbooks into their respective homerooms. The only one's left were those for the senior class unlucky enough to have Tanner. She'd put them off till last for good reason.

Since being stupid enough to fall for Tanner's trick with the summer essay, Mildred had avoided him. It wasn't hard, what with her not having history yesterday and today being the end of the semester. She'd spent a lot of time thinking about the highly disturbing conversation she overheard the man having with that substitute teacher, pondering exactly what she was meant to do about it.

On the one hand, Damon was a bit of a menace – albeit a seriously hot one. He'd killed before and would almost certainly do so again. He was unpredictable – flying off the handle far too easily – superstrong and had a thirst for vengeance. His life had been ruined in this town; ergo, he wanted to ruin the town. It made sense – it was probably what _she_ would do were she in his position. The problem with him taking revenge here was that nobody responsible for the 1864 incident was actually alive today. Mildred was a big believer that no one should be held personally accountable for the sins of their father – or, in this case, their great-great-great _grand_ fathers.

She could sympathize with the vampire well enough. What had gone down in the nineteenth century had been a bloodbath. Leading up to the main incident, many townsfolk had died; Mildred wasn't sure how much _proof_ there was that those deaths were actually the work of vampires. It was likely not all of the vampires dwelling here had been vicious. They'd been in town nearly a year before everything kicked off; according to the library's newspaper archives, mysterious deaths had begun only two months before the Battle of White Oak Creek.

The conclusion she came to was that the Council was most probably made up of uninformed bigots. Few types in this world were more abhorrent than that.

Mildred could see both sides of the story here, could _feel_ for everyone involved. You had that stupid Council trying to protect its citizens by _any_ means necessary, plus the vampires who literally _required_ blood to survive. Without having all the facts, it was impossible to say for certain who the guiltiest parties were... Even without further evidence, the one thing she was positive about was that trapping all the vampires in a church and _burning_ it was a horrendous over-reaction. It was mass-murder, pure and simple.

Now there was Tanner and the Sub, meeting surreptitiously to discuss local deaths and planning to kill any vampire they came across. If they just went out and shot Damon – if he _was_ the one killing folks, which was as yet unsubstantiated – how would they be any better than him? Actually, Tanner was such a dick she was pretty much willing to take a _murderer's_ side over his. There was killing for survival, then there was _Tanner_...

Who knew how many vampires those two men had killed already. How many of them actually deserved it?

No – Mildred couldn't blindly take their side on principal alone. Just because they were human and so was she, didn't mean their cause was any juster.

Perhaps if she could just speak t–

                                                     She collided head-on with something.

                              Scalding     burning hot     sloshing all down her front.  
                         Recoiling     Heels pressing back onto nothing...

                 Failing to catch the guardrail  
            Slipping past the tips of her fingers  
         Clutching air...

  A high-pitched exclamation of horror            
not her own.

Mildred tumbled back down the stairs.

She came to rest in an ungainly heap six steps lower than she'd been. She heard the heel of one of her shoes snap beneath her, the resulting chunk of loose wood jamming itself in a very uncomfortable place. Scattered about her were yearbooks, mostly covered in coffee...just like her chest.

"God fuck!" she exhaled angrily, picking herself back up and staring at the debris across the stairs.

Her heart was bludgeoning her ribs. Adrenaline coursed through her, though there was no immediate danger.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so _sorry_! I wasn't looking where I was going," called a light, airy voice that carried well. "Here, let me help."

Tearing her gaze away from the mess, she discovered a redheaded girl before her; the girl held a mostly-crushed coffee cup in tight fingers, glancing Mildred's way with enormous, glimmering eyes. Though the other girl was two steps up, she was still tiny. By height alone the girl didn't appear any older than thirteen; it was only the shape of her body that said she was probably closer to Gloria's age. As with everyone in Mystic Falls – it sometimes seemed – she was very attractive.

The girl darted forward, scrambling around to recollect the array of runaway yearbooks.

Balancing on one foot, Mildred looked down at her nice blue dress in dismay. Pulling taut the bunched up fabric at the neckline, she could see the full scope of damage – drycleaning was required. A dark, bruiselike stain spread across the chest of her dress, almost purple in the dimly lit stairwell; she glowered down at it, suddenly wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this morning.

Crossly, she thought, _Wednesday's should be banned for the good of everyone._

"Care's going to kill me," she muttered darkly to herself. "'Dress sxycute for photos' she says… Now look. Shit, this is never gonna come out."

"Gosh," the girl moaned guiltily, cradling a stack of dripping yearbooks, "your dress… I think perhaps I could–" she paused, squinted, then confusedly asked, " _Glory?_ Is that _you_?"

Mildred gave an awkward little half-wave. Another peer she was meant to recognize?

"Circe! _Glory_ – it's so good to see you!" she cried exuberantly, flinging herself in for a hug.

The other girl turned out to be so very short of stature that she ended up with her face smooshed in Mildred's – now well-caffeinated – boobs.

Leaning back a little, the redhead appraised Mildred for a moment, then asked quizzically, "What are you _wearing_? I don't think I've ever seen you in _girl_ clothes – except at parties."

Mildred looked down at herself. "There's something wrong with this dress?" she wondered bemusedly – she'd thought it was pretty. "Well, other than the _coffee-stain_?" she tacked on sardonically, deciding the garment really was ruined.

"No no – there's nothing wrong with it," the small girl assured. "It's just...weird to see it on _you_. Didn't even realize it _was_ you. Come on, let's go see if we can clean you up a bit – if not, I'm sure Merry's got something in her locker you can borrow."

Having no better solution, she limped in the girl's wake. Her new acquaintance lead her up the stairs – successfully this time – and down the hall past Tanner's classroom. Just beyond the supply cabinets was the girl's second-floor restroom. Grabbing Mildred's hand and–

The redhead stumbled halfway through opening the door to the restroom, making a sharp, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. Those hazel eyes were now...confused – _frightened_ even. A quiver in her voice, the girl asked, "Are you– Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

Mildred nodded hesitantly, thoroughly thrown off by the small girl's sudden change in attitude.

"It's just, you feel... _funny_ ," the redhead continued, her body language suggesting she something had startled her.

Frowning down at the girl, whose words sparked instant annoyance, Mildred came to her senses. Why was she even following this pixie-girl around, who'd just knocked her down the stairs, ruined the last of Caroline's yearbooks (something the blond was sure to make her suffer for later), and soaked her with coffee?

"Sorry, don't mean to be rude," Mildred said irately – even though she totally _did_ – as she stepped into the restroom, "but exactly _who_ are you?"

The redhead's posture lost its stiffness. She gave a relieved giggle, coming in and leaning casually against the row of sinks.

It wasn't the reaction Mildred had expected.

"Come on, I'm your best-friend. I didn't mean anything by it," the girl said nonsensically. "I'm just imagining things, don't mind me."

Best-friend? _Wow_.

Mildred had heard that from random students before... Like Cheer Girl, who'd not spoken to her in the several days she'd been attending Richard C. Lee, then got all offended at Marcia's, claiming Mildred had been _snubbing_ her. Then there was Matt, whose friendship with her was pretty much destroyed because apparently, he couldn't deal with her vampire-mania. And dear Caroline, who was genuinely all kinds of sweet and awesome.

So where did _this_ little stranger fit into it all?

"Come on," the girl went on, pulling a fabric napkin out her pocket, wetting it, and trying to work out the stain on Mildred's dress, "if you're angry about me not being around for you, just come out and say it. Just go, 'Bonnie, you're supposed to be my best-friend – and you completely _deserted me_ in my time of greatest need'... It's okay, you know. You know me – I can take it. It's _true_ , after all."

_I'm sorry, **what** now?_

_This_ was Bonnie?

No. That was stupid. This girl looked _nothing_ like Bonnie. Nothing about her was familiar in the least.

So far, everyone else she'd met here was, if not twin-identical to their TV character, at least recognizable. There was Jenna with her wide smile and loosely curled, caramelly hair; then Jeremy, lean with dark hair and a moody countenance; even John was the same, keeping his smile tight, seeming at times so terrified he might fuck everything up. Among her peers, Matt was the blond and blue-eyed, football playing, stereotypical boy-next-door; Tyler, the testosterone-filled jerk who spent more time leering than studying; and Caroline, who could almost be her actresses genuine double… Even Damon was pretty much what she'd expect, though she herself was a bit anaemic-looking.

This wasn't the Bonnie she so looked forward to meeting. _This_ was a complete stranger.

Utterly lost, Mildred coughed and mumbled, " _Sorry_." Dryly, she added, "You've been gone so long I forgot what you look like."

"Hah! _Bitchy much_?" the girl – allegedly Bonnie – snarked, sounding strangely delighted. "God, Glory, how much time've you been spending with Caroline Forbes? I'm almost _proud_ of you for that one. And I know – I deserve it."

Bonnie stared at her, lips crinkling, then giggled again. The sound was light and tinkling, more like the voice Mildred had out in the real world than the deeper huskiness Gloria's body came with.

"So, honing of insult skills aside, how've you been holding up? I don't even want to get into the Merry and Caroline stuff. I wasn't here, don't know what happened, don't want to take sides," Bonnie announced definitively, rinsing and wringing the coffee-darkened napkin out under the tap.

"I've been...fine, I guess," Mildred replied flatly, looking for a way out the conversation.

None presented itself.

The next fifteen minutes seemed to last forever. The little redhead rambled like a hummingbird, darting from topic to topic as if following some preset itinerary only she could hope to understand.

Not-proper-Bonnie told her all about the cooler summer weather in a place she referred to as 'Albanu' – because apparently, the proper name was too nasty to be pronounced – and how the plains there seemed to go on forever, only to suddenly be consumed by the sea. She let Mildred in on what she was 'allowed' to about the place her grandmother took her to for training: A big, halfway house out in the middle of nowhere, where psychics and mediums and dime-a-dozen crystal witches could find peace and find themselves. It sounded like a commune. Or a _cult_.

"I mean, I've gotten a lot of the family history now," Bonnie chirped happily, seeming oblivious of Mildred's poor attention. "Apparently it's not a coincidence both sides of my family immigrated from Alba. Dad's side were working for some guy, looking for something, and their search brought them here. Then _poof_ , some bad shit goes down, they lose their jobs, so they just _stayed_."

Making vague noises of agreement now and then, Mildred considered this supposed-Bonnie – the newest development in her life of weirdness – wondering if she was an imposter.

There had been nights – in the long days since she twisted vervain-soaked chains around her ankles – in which Mildred thought on the conspicuous absence of Bonnie the Teenage Witch. On TV, the girl had been relatively tough on her friends...but, to be fair, _they_ 'd been far tougher on _her_. The pretty girl was so often treated as a token character – a magical tool serving to close small plotholes, move things along and, in general, act as a voice of reason amongst all the chaos. More often than not, from what she recalled, proper-Bonnie's power had been scuppered one way or another: There'd been something about an eclipse and an empty ghost-world; times when she was too miserable to access her powers; and the girl might even have been dead for a while. (By that point, Mildred hadn't really been watching at all.)

Until now, she'd expected that whenever Bonnie did show up again – Matt had mentioned her impending return a couple of times – the girl would know she was a witch. What this little redhead seemed to be saying, between the babble about boys and her plans for the rest of the summer, was that she was a 'psychic'. That didn't sound the same as witch at all, to Mildred. A psychic was more like...a medium, a clairvoyant.

This _wasn't_ who she'd hoped for.

Although small, part of her had thought that with Bonnie's return might come a chance to finally try and unravel her dream-world issue.

How often had Mildred mulled over the possibility dying here would cause her to wake up in reality? With no sign of leaving this world anytime soon and far too nervous to test the death-wakes-you theory, she wasn't willing to tell Gloria's family and friends she was from another place entirely and _really_ wanted to go home. One, they'd be angry that she wasn't Gloria – but that was only if they even believed her; because two, they would probably lock her up in a mental institution. Not fun.

Fact was, Bonnie – recently having discovered her heritage as a witch – had been her best shot at some proper help with this odd situation. More than anyone else in this place, Mildred had expected the bright girl would be willing to sit and hear out her story without panicking… And proper-Bonnie would have believed her, too, rather than assuming she'd gone wacko. Weird stuff happened to witches all the time, going by the show – Bonnie would've  _understood,_ would have tried to help her.

Instead of that slightly-judgy but overall very trustworthy and fair witch, there was _this_ elfine girl. Small with red hair, practically translucent skin with some freckling across the bridge of her nose and otherworldly, hazel eyes. Short skirt and frilly shirt. Almost as bubbly as Caroline, though without the underlying franticness…

In short, a complete stranger.

"And I said to her, 'If you're going to pull shit like that, she'll never make up with you', but I don't even know if she cares anymore," this-Bonnie was saying. "I don't get it – what could you have possibly done that's bad enough to deserve her full...well, bitchiness. I mean, it could just be because it's Caroline Forbes – you know how they are with each other. Merry's not exactly well off… It's always been this competition with her and Caroline – for your friendship, for a position on the squad, for guys, for the best grades… They're like arch-enemies."

As she was often wont to, Mildred wished she could return to her own reality – to a place where there were no vampires, no witches or werewolves, and where there were fifty states. Without someone to assist her, though, she feared she may be trapped here _forever_.

She let out a long, heavy breath. A headache of pressure and dancing rainbows was building behind her eyes; she closed them to block out the restroom's too-bright, artificial lighting.

"Hey, hey it's okay," fake-Bonnie said, finally noticing something was off with the conversation. "I know I said we wouldn't talk about it – I mean, I really don't want to take sides. Just I… _Sorry_. I'll be your friend no matter what happens between you and Merry – I haven't forgotten you and Caroline were friends back before the Sulezes moved to town… I might think she's a total...well, I might not _like_ her since high school but I'm not gonna give you grief about it..."

Opening her eyes briefly to look down at the other girl, Mildred just gave a tired nod and sighed, " _Sure_...thanks... Look, I don't think the coffee's going to come out anytime this century – I'd be better off just going home to change."

Not-Bonnie stared up at her, concern shining in her eyes. "You sure? I still reckon Merry'll have something in her locker – you're basically the same size..."

"I'm not borrowing anything from _her_."

Seeming taken aback by the coldness of this statement, the redhead bobbed her head in apparent acceptance. "Okay… We'll get you back to yours, then. Want me to drive you?" she asked, stepping out the ladies and back into the busy hall.

Mildred shrugged.

Why had her subconscious done away with proper-Bonnie, who was possibly the only confident she could've realistically had here? Why would she ruin her chances of having just _one_ friend who understood her plight?

The answer must be that, at a very deep, uncharted level, Mildred _hated_ herself.

She hated her real life, where she wasn't likely to ever get a real breakout part and step off the stage at Mildew Central. She loathed her mother, who never really wanted her anyway. She resented her caring father, who'd always loved his woodwork and his bees and his old life in Australia just a little bit more. She even envied her best-friend – rich, successful, eternally-cheerful Lucy – who never had to go without anything for even a day if she really _wanted_ it.

And yeah – she hated _herself_ for never being quite good enough to make the big-time. In the back of her mind, she always told herself it was her agent's fault, or that casters didn't know what they were talking about, or that she didn't get callbacks because of her _looks_ – too big in the chest, too broad in shoulder and hip, hair too eighties, face too round – on parts she was clearly perfect for.

It was never any of that, she now knew. She spent years telling herself she was good, that people passing her over all the time was _their_ mistake, but maybe everything she'd been doing since she was a kid was _her_ mistake.

She thought she could make it.

She never did.

Now, she was here. Stuck in this Unreality where her imagination was too useless to bother correctly reproducing the characters of a TV show...

          Where did Cheer Girl come from?

        What happened to good old proper-Bonnie?

      Why was Mags in the car?

    Why couldn't Mildred just get along with Jenna?

      Why the hell was absent-John her touchstone?

        What possessed her to destroy her friendship with Matt on a passing whim?

_Why why why **w hy**?_

      Just...what the fuck was _wrong_ with her?

"I'm a fucking idiot," she whispered to herself hoarsely, voice filled with pain.

"What was that?" Not-Bonnie asked brightly.

If the girl was psychic, why couldn't she _feel_ the misery pouring off 'Gloria'?

The redhead pushed her way into the over-populated cafeteria. Struggling to hold herself together and forced to travel on one broken shoe, Mildred staggered her way into a seat. With an elbow on the table, hand propping up her head, all she could be bothered to do was stare at the wall on the other side of the hall, contemplating... _nothing_.

Just nothing.

Her mind had gone blank.

After a while, the chair beside hers was drawn out.

"Tough day, huh?" asked a friendly voice. It was Liz Forbes.

Mildred tried to turn her head, to respond, but just couldn't find the enthusiasm to do so.

"You've had it really rough," the Sheriff acknowledged thoughtfully. "And I know I've appreciated all the effort you've been putting in with my Carrie – don't think I've seen her so pumped about life since… Well, since her father. But… What I'm trying to say–" she clasped two hands around her mug, leaning forward so Mildred could see the woman's sympathetic expression out the corner of her eye "–I know you think you have to be here today... You _don't_. If this is all too much for you, I can have one of the boys drop you back home – no shame, no trouble. How's that sound?"

Mildred must've nodded. She couldn't remember doing it but obviously agreed to the Sheriff's suggestion; twenty minutes later found her in the back of a vehicle driven by one of the Police Department's deputies. An indeterminate amount of time after that, she was handed off to a worried-looking Jeremy.

Caroline was going to be so mad at her for not finishing with the yearbooks...or showing up in any of the journalism club's Open Day photos.

It was her 'pretend'-brother who took her inside, got her showered and into clean clothes. He forced her to eat a tasteless TV dinner and sat with her for hours while she sniffled on and off, crying and railing against the unfairness of it all. Eventually, she didn't have the energy to do even that anymore.

Stiltedly, Jeremy called things as he saw them: She _wasn't_ doing a shitty job of it all and he envied her ability to just go back to school, to hang out with friends as if she was fine. Her brother said he wished _he_ knew how to do that.

"I know you're not any better off than me, really," he observed later in the evening. "You're just better at faking it. Hey, maybe you were right – you _would_ make a good actress..."

She laughed through tears and snot.

Not caring about the deaths of the Gilbert parents wasn't even an _act_. They weren't Mildred's family; she'd met them for all of an hour. Unlike Mags, who was a child – she could never have lived with herself if a little girl died in her arms – she felt absolutely zero connection to Miranda or Grayson Gilbert.

So...Jeremy could say she was putting up a good show – just as Caroline once commented – but really she wasn't even making an effort. What _would_ 've been impressive is if she'd actually managed to look like she was grieving – it was a tough emotion to pull off. Though, in all fairness, with the couple of near-mental breakdowns she'd had in the last month, she supposed they _did_ think she was grieving…

And...maybe she _was_ , in many ways.

She was grieving in the space her lost-reality had left. Even if she felt nothing for Gloria's parents, she was affected by the loss of her own identity. Even if she held resentment for her father, even if she was jealous of Lucy and had spent half her childhood hoping her mother would just give up and _leave already_ , she still felt their absense keenly.

Her life was shit but it had been _hers_.

Now she was _Gloria_ – the Golden Girl of Mystic Falls... Really not a position she wanted, just one forced upon her.

Jenna didn't come back to the house before nightfall. According to Jeremy, she and Magda were staying with the McCulloughs for the evening, catching up. It was probably a good thing. Mildred didn't want her aunt's judgment and her baby sister didn't need to see her like this.

Jeremy put on some slow music that was almost grungy. The lights went off in an attempt to quell her migraine. In the darkness, Mildred discovered her brother had a nervous habit – he fiddled with his zippo. She bummed a smoke just to stop him doing it. The two of them leaning back against the headboard of her bed, she lazily watched coils of smoke pass in and out of the narrow streams of light slipping through gaps in the curtains. The bass vibrating gently through the walls was deep and oddly comforting – like a heartbeat at the center of the universe.

According to the clock, it was only an hour until her birthday. Any of this morning's anticipation for it had been swept away. Twenty-eight – even though it was technically twenty-eight/eighteen – wasn't an important milestone. By morning, her aunt would be back to ruin any illusion of peace Mildred might manage to reach tonight. After a month of tense confusion, she desperately needed to _relax_ , to take advantage of the comfort of faux-family. Jeremy was her brother, now, and she needed him as much as he seemed to need her.

It wasn't as if any of this was real, anyway. She could literally rob a bank and there'd be no big consequences in the long run…

She'd thought that _before_ , hadn't she?

Slowly, Mildred allowed the music to lull her into the deadly-calm sleep of the physically worn and mentally spent. Whatever consequences there would be, she could deal with them when they came. She had her reasons for throwing caution to the wind – today had been _awful_.

Fuck Wednesdays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This probably hurt me more than it hurt you... Emphasis on the *probably*


End file.
